


The Masquerade

by ASOUEfan



Series: The Fate Between Us [1]
Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: (sort of?), Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Insert: Reader - Freeform, Coming of Age, Dolores developing consciousness, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fear of Death, Fist Fights, Ford schemes a lot, Got darker than it meant to, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Naked Cuddling, Philosophical Pondering, Recovered Memories, Repressed Memories, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Stabbing, Stripping, Swearing, Tenderness, William gets nasty, as far as Dolores is concerned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:02:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23654305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASOUEfan/pseuds/ASOUEfan
Summary: To reduce time pulling hosts for repair and code glitches, Ford proposes sending programmers into the park, to live and work there to maintain the Hosts on-site. Less interruptions to the narratives, more time they spend in service.Covertly, Ford plans to observe the long term effects of humans living alongside the Hosts; if humans evolve downward, accept the world around them and the players in their lives, the same way Hosts can evolve upward. Unwittingly you simply see it as a great job opportunity for an up-and-coming tech programmer, a way to make a name for yourself being part of this pilot scheme.So with good pay and nowhere to spend it, you find yourself living on the Abernathy Ranch, trying to stay out of the way when Bandits come calling, not to interrupt the storylines. Your job is to fix the Hosts, wipe their memories and do it all again tomorrow.However, there is only so many times you can hide out back and listen to her screams, before finding yourself pulled to save her.
Relationships: Dolores Abernathy/Reader, Dolores Abernathy/The Man in Black, Dolores Abernathy/William
Series: The Fate Between Us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760146
Comments: 112
Kudos: 138





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fic will follow Dolores' and the readers journey, Dolores physically suffering and the Reader mentally suffering, seeing and/or hearing the culmination of Dolores' loop happen over and over. I was hooked on the idea of what would the workers feel like, watching the Hosts day in day out with different Guests, even from the labs, the repair shop in the bowels of the Mesa? They're so real, and its easy to say they're simply lines of code, but when you hear that girl screaming as she's dragged off to a Barn, and you know the pain she thinks she's feeling, that pain is to her so real, only to be wiped and not remember? What would that do to you, the worker, being in this fic the only one to know each day what happened the one before? What happens when William comes back time after time, but this time, you're there. A human to judge his actions, see them repeated. How he comes for her, how he changes, what is it he's really looking for? What are you looking for? I want to try and explore that.

Ch 1

The cold sterile room was surrounded by glass. Standing outside, you’re biting your thumb nail nervously as you watch your boss, Bernard Lowe, interview the Host sitting naked in front of him. Why _did_ they have to be naked? You’d never quite grasped it. You keep your eyes trained off her pale form, feeling guilty for even _wanting_ to look.

“Where are you Dolores?” Bernard's smooth chestnut voice asks.

Her eyes stare emptily across the room. “I’m in a dream.”

He taps at his computer. “Good.” He watches the bigger screen to his left as he asks the next question, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Who is Frances Matheson?”

Dolores seems to brighten, her features pulling into a smile as she replies. “She works on the Ranch; Daddy says she's one of the best Ranchers we’ve ever had.” You don't know why this makes your cheeks dust themselves pink. It was a story, after all. You’re not a Rancher, but a programmer. You liked the idea though, and it was preferable to find a job for you on the ranch itself, not in town. Less opportunity of getting seen by Guests or caught up it in things that were not your job.

Bernard, seemingly happy with her answer, nodded a little. “When did she start working for your family, Dolores?”

Her tongue faintly touches her bottom lip as she appears to think about it. This new code must feel strange, you think. To suddenly be gifted new memories you didn't have before, all with the press of an upload button. “A few years ago, I think. I’m not sure exactly, it feels like she's always been part of the family.” She answers with emotion, not facts. Dolores doesn’t know she's been in the park, the same age, for 35 years. Time was not a construct she was familiar with.

Ford unfolded his arms and tucked them instead to rest in his pockets. “How do you feel about her?”

You glance to your side, knowing this to be the next question Bernard was to ask. Bernard hears too, and turns around on the stool to look questioningly at his boss. Ford holds his hand up a moment telling Bernard to wait, and looks to you for an answer.

“Me?” You clarify, and he nods. “I don't know her, I don’t really feel anything toward her _._ ”

Fords expression hardened. “Her?”

“ _It._ ” You correct yourself. Everyone had their own preference about using personal pronouns with the Hosts or not, but for you it simply happened automatically. You couldn’t call something that had a name, and breasts, an _It. “Its_ a computer. Albeit one with high functioning capabilities, neverthless _it_ remains … simply a very advanced computer.” You emphasise the ‘it’ for his benefit.

He lifts his white eyebrows at you, silently chastising you for the barbs in your answer. You do your best to hold his gaze. “And a very pretty one.” Ford murmurs, watching _you_ this time, for a reaction.

It came from Ford that the Hosts are to wear no clothes when in the Mesa. You even heard someone say he ripped a towel off one, when an architect was cutting and perfecting a Hosts beard, like in a hairdresser. He simply hadn’t wanted to get the hair everywhere, yet Ford had taken offence at the thing being covered up like it could feel cold.

It didn't mean anything of course, that she was - _appeared_ , young and pretty, big doleful eyes that took in the splendour every morning; or that she was sitting naked in front of all of you. You want to huff at Ford and his supposed moral high ground, as if thinking of a Host as _naked_ , is in itself some human failure, to attribute meaning to seeing a thing without its covering. The carnal need to find her attractive, was simply human programming at its most ancient, and nothing more. But watching the curve in his cheeks crease as the corner of his lips smile when he looks at her, you know what he’s thinking, just like every Guest in the park that sees her and feels his pants tighten.

You grind your teeth, not biting on his comment, and he waves his hand for Bernard to continue.

“How do you feel about her?” Bernard asks Dolores, and she touches her hair lightly, an attractive feminine quirk. You had noticed a few of them do the same motion.

“She’s a friend, like anyone you’ve known a long time, its … comforting knowing she's in the fields,” Dolores says, talking of the character you will soon be playing in her life. “My Father isn’t getting any younger, he needs the help, and I’m often busy with errands.” _Like going to Sweetwater to pick up the same groceries, every time you start your loop again,_ you think.

“Thats good,” Bernard nods, pushes his glasses up and unhooks the computer cable. “If you need anything, Miss Matheson is there to help you, and your family.” He glances around to Ford with a nod, satisfied the update has taken and the requisite memories are there for you to start work.

“I know.” She smiles, and as her eyes journey across the room staring into space, perhaps imagining the view from her bedroom window, but then her eyes seem to connect with yours, for just a moment through the glass. Your heart stops. Was she looking at you? But then they carry on idly roaming the room with nothing to really see, and you do a long exhale, glancing at Ford hoping he didn't notice. If there really was, anything to notice at all.

Bernard stands, and gestures to the Host. “Its time to go now, Dolores.”

————

You step off the train, excited Guests spilling out either side of you on to the wooden platform. Some, experienced Guests knew where they wanted to go, the best places for a bite to eat, a narrative to find and follow. You’d not have expected this to happen; to leave your boring apartment in the city suburbs this morning (because that was the most you could afford, even with the Delos salary you still had college debt) for a job on the Abernathy Ranch, a long time fixture in the Westworld landscape.

A Park, a role play experience, or a game? Opinions differed on who you talked to. Despite knowing the levels of work that went into making the Park seem authentic, there was still no explaining that exhilaration you felt at the first gulp of fresh dusty air, in what seemed the real Wild West.

Unlike the Guests, you had a suitcase packed for a longer time stay. You grip its fake-worn leather handle tightly as you pace a few steps forwards looking around for the Host you knew would be waiting for you. It had been programmed to happen of course, but acting as if it was all real was going to be an experience, if not a constant challenge. “Hey! There you are, I was beginning to worry,” The blonde you know as Dolores Abernathy approaches with a warm familiar smile, one hand hitching her skirts to allow her to climb onto the platform and embrace you as she was written to. You were after all, a long time friend and worker on the family ranch, or so Dolores believed.

Your arm hooks around her back as you return the hug, reminding yourself you need to be authentic too if this project of Ford’s was going to work. “Dolores,” You greet her fondly, or try to. “Am I mighty glad to be back in Sweetwater.”

“I’m sure, after that long train ride!” She seems to admire the magnificence of it, the heavy steam engine almost magical in its level of mechanics. For those from the Wild West this really was the pinnacle of human achievement.

“A week is more than long enough a holiday for me,” You make small talk along the scripted lines you read before boarding the train. Bernard had at least let you agree your lines in Dolores’s code, so that your answers could be natural ones, not forcing you to live in a script, but talk freely like a Guest would. Albeit a permanent one with a job todo.

“C’mon lets get you home,” She loops her arm gaily through yours and you walk together down the steps to the main street, your heels kicking up reddish brown dust clouds that dampen the cream edging of your skirt with the same dirty colour. You hadn’t figured how real everything would feel. The ground beneath your feet, the sounds of the piano’s lilting notes floating from the Mariposa Saloon, the smells of horse dung and whisky filling your nostrils. You caught yourself smiling at its all, the splendour of it, Ford’s great design.

Finding her horse, and the second she led down for you, you hook your case on the back of the mare and buckle it on with some leathers. You mount with a swing of your leg, glad you did horse back riding as a teenager to at least have the muscle memory to fake your way this far. You let the man-made horse follow Dolores and her roan out the main street of Sweetwater, breaking into a rhythmical lope to keep pace with her.

You’ve watched the route many times of course, you know the lay of the land from images and videos. But to actually _be here_ is something else. The vast rolling valley lays itself out before you, a gentle breeze blowing her long blond hair from her face - its all so perfect.

You laugh, shaking your head to yourself. _Of course it is,_ thats how it was designed to be. You can understand for the first time why Guests spend all that money returning year after year, when the real world is all modern shades of black and silver, expectations with it. Life was a dull monotone grey, and not the bright colours of feverish possibilities offered here.

As Dolores slows at the valley edge, you ease your weight back and signal your horse to break its lope down to a trot and quickly to walk. “Woah,” You soothe the mare, giving her neck a pat and following Dolores up the stony path from the valley edge to the mouth of the Abernathy Ranch, your set-up for the next 3 months. Maybe longer, you muse, should this project of Fords work out. Would you want another rotation right away? 6 months this time?

 _Its only Day 1,_ you remind yourself. Its too early to say how you’ll feel by the end of it, but the allure of this world is already seeping into your bones. Peter Abernathy descends from the porch with a tin tankard in his hand, raising it in greeting. “Howdy, good to see you back,” He calls, offering his free hand to Dolores helping her off the horse, all old school chivalry and paternal concern. Even being part of the programming team, you wonder how all these interactions can be purely coded, when they seem _so real._

“Thanks Mr Abernathy,” You shake his hand and lead your horse after Dolores’s in the barn, untacking the mare and patting her rump letting her rest in the stable for now. Hanging in the doorway with your suitcase, you wait for Dolores to be ready too and you head inside together, her father welcoming as he points you into the dining room.

“Go on, I’ll let my wife know you’re safe. She’s been worrying herself something awful. Doesn’t trust those big ol’ smokin’ machines,” He shuts the house door, then slings his hand at his waist, resting atop the thick leather belt of his breeches.

You huff, frowning at the comment. “You mean the train?”

“Too modern for her taste,” Peter chuckles, leaning in to whisper as though it makes his wife terribly out of fashion to not like the smoke-belching locomotive that brings Newcomers to town.

“Oh Daddy, they’re perfectly safe, tell him,” She touches your arm as she passes behind you, a beguiling smile she doesn't know she's making as she shares with you the oft-repeated moment (in her mind at least) of how she loves her parents dearly, despite their old fashioned ways.

You try not to find her endearing, but she's programmed in such a way you’re _meant_ to enjoy being around her. For better or worse, you have to play along. Its not like in the labs, you cant ask her to _freeze all motor functions,_ go into her diagnostics without good reason.

Not just to remind yourself she is a machine.

“The train is safe,” You tell Peter, taking a seat at the dining table as indicated. “Plus I’m back now, no need to be going on one again for a long time to come.” You knew these far off concepts of time were much better used, when the Hosts had no real idea how long the life they’ve lived was, or wasn’t.

You ignored the voice at the back of your mind telling you this was all robots acting a certain way, instead coming to terms with yourself through the course of dinner, that this was your life now. For 3 months at least, if not more if you put in for a second rotation, you would be living here with them, living _like_ them. Its was freeing, in its own way. No need to keep checking your cell phone, or look at your watch, always having somewhere to be, some update to click on.

Life moved at a slower pace. Peter refilled your cup one more time and you had to laugh at his insistence. “I’m good, honestly, I should be getting to bed. It was a wonderful dinner Mrs Abernathy,” You thanked Dolores’ mother politely, excusing yourself from another of Peters stories. Escaping to the stairs and collecting your suitcase en-route, you roll your eyes to yourself, shaking your head a little. Whichever story writer had done the narratives for him had really gone to town on the back stories, yawning and covering your mouth as you climb up towards the stairs of the house, which you’ve never seen from the Mesa. Dolores’ loop starts once she comes onto the porch, the short time she has after waking is her own and unobserved by their many technicians.

You hear footsteps behind you, and as you turn you see Dolores gesturing which door is yours. “In here, don't you remember?” She frowns, looking at you strangely. “You haven't been away _that_ long.”

You shake your head. The acting part of this job was definitely undersold to you. “Right, no of course.” You gesture lamely at the hall window. “Just wanted a gander at the sun setting was all. Its, kind of beautiful.”

After turning the porcelain door handle for you, she leaves your bedroom door open and comes to join you at the end of the hall, peering out across the beautiful sea of green pasture and farmland, the sun indeed lowering behind the mountains in its slow life-like pace, casting everything in a honeyed glow. “There so much splendour in the world, isn't there?”

Your eyes glance to the side, taking in the details of her, the splendour _in her._ At such close quarters, it really was remarkable to think she wasn’t just the same as you. She catches you looking, turning her eyes to you too and for a moment just stares back at you, a curious questioning look in her eyes.

Then all of a sudden she does a shy giggle, and it feels out of context of the moment that had been happening. Perhaps her programming didn't have a suitable response. You stare at her as she walks back to your bedroom door, the twitch in her behaviour seemingly unnoticed by Dolores herself. “Well, g’night then.” She says, leaning gently on the door opposite yours, _her_ bedroom you suppose, and disappears inside.

“Goodnight, Dolores.” You reply, though her door is almost shut, it pauses just as you answer her, then closes fully. Taking a last look at the sunset, you head to your room, unpack the sets of clothes Delos had furnished you with, and sit on the bed waiting until you couldn't hear her footsteps across the hall anymore.

You bring the empty suitcase onto your lap, quietly, carefully.

The magnetic inside panel hidden on the inside of your suitcase opened with a click, once you applied the opposite attracted magnet from the handle base of your gun. Leaving your gun on the bed beside you, you lift the secret panel away and bring out the tech you’ve been issued to maintain your Hosts. You have a job to do, you remind yourself. Not here to get involved with their narratives. Just play your part.

Fold out laptop. Satellite phone. Solar power battery packs for the former. Spare parts, wires and ports for the Hosts; the easy replaceable bits and those that got most often damaged. Plus an array of tools - screwdrivers, glue gun for quick patches, hot healing iron that fixed every and any injury - of the human variety too (even if it looked more like a lighter with a handle). It was industrial standard like the guys that worked the Hosts the most down in the repair shop, you’d insisted on more than one just in case. Who knows, you could fall of your damn horse and break a leg too.

You've worked on Dolores back in the lab a few times, but most of the Hosts you come into contact with are the white man-made silicon fibre now, and not of the metal rib caged variety like she was. She was an original, one of the few remaining, and as such one of the more _difficult_ in terms of physical maintenance, despite most parts of her having been replaced over the years.

You want to believe being given the Abernathys narrative means something, a special honour of sorts that Ford wanted to give you. Did you have the most potential as a programmer? Some talent you didn't recognise, but he did? To entrust Dolores and the others in her loop to your care, must mean something, right? She wasn’t just anybody.

Deciding on a floor panel under the chest of drawers, you quietly push the piece of remarkably heavy furniture to one side, enough to unscrew a piece of floorboard and stow your modern tech safely under it. It might be that you need it somewhere more accessible, depending how often you’ll be doing full resets and memory wipes for them; which depended on how often the bandits come to the Ranch.

You’d read her Narrative from the computer; Teddy’s, Peters, Sally Watts in the General Store. 2 weeks wasn’t long enough to know every iteration, but you know how it plays out. Plus, there had been enough recordings of her back-ups stored in the Cradle that you could, if you had wanted, spent days down there watching the same loop play over and over. Guests that picked up her can, and caught a sight of her smile, taking her up on the adventure of a cattle ranch and a ranchers daughter at the end of it. Those that took up with the Bandits that waited across the mains street, watching from the steps of the Mariposa Saloon. Or those that fancied themselves the hero, pairing up with the town Sheriff to catch the Bandits for themselves and bag a pretty gal along with the reward money for their troubles.

It had taken you less than an hour to realise there were only so many ways it played out. That these repetitive cycles of Newcomers following her to the Ranch, would become your life now too. And for the little variance there was, you wanted to at least live it, rather than numb yourself to every possible contingency now.

So you screw the panel back down, slide the solid wooden chest of drawers back into place, kick off your boots, and climb into bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a flashback for the reader, and fleshes out a bit more of the details of her place in all of this...

Ford personally vetted all the programmers that would work within the park, so you were told. You had never met the man yourself and the idea of doing so intimidated you, but the job seems like one you cant pass up.

He was the Creator of all of this, the mastermind, the wizard behind the curtain. So when you walk in the interview room and shake his cool, hardened hand, you're trembling with a terrible mix of nerves and awe. He's the epitome of what a programmer like you could become, after all, and could give you the opportunity of a lifetime.

Bernard Lowe of course you knew well. He was a soft spoken man, mumbling mostly and playing with his glasses. His intelligence scuppered his social skills, as was the case with most who carried the burden of being, superior on the intelligence scale than the common man. But he was a good boss, and you had no grievance with him, he did right by the Hosts and you respected that. He trod the line between knowing they weren’t real, while treating them with as much dignity and respect as one could a machine.

Ford however, seemed to loathe the very things he had created. “They’re dreadfully dull after a while, you’ll come to realise. We cap the guests stay in the Park to one month for that very reason. If they don’t go off on some wild ride through the foothills, they will begin to notice the patterns. The Hosts will do the same things every morning, unless interacted with. Left undisturbed the Hosts go about their loops, quite contentedly.”

You nod at his monologue, taking in the information you already know. The nod is simply confirmatory. “Yes Dr Ford.”

Bernard leans forward on his chair, while Ford had chosen to remain standing, so he could pace the length of the room as though chewing over some problem in his mind. “That is what you will be there for, really. Not so much programming -“ He begins, until Bernard interrupts.

“Though this _is_ programmers job. Fixing them both, physically _,_ and their code, with the least disruption as possible.” He pushes his glasses up his nose and scrolls through the flip sided computer screen with your personnel file on display, both in his hand and projected on the larger screen beside you.

“I read the job description Bernard, thats why I applied. I have the opportunity to work more autonomously, while learning what they do downstairs to repair the Hosts and cycle them back into service,” You clarify. It was a damn good opportunity, a newly created role, freedom to write your own code and fix them up while visiting the park, living it, as the Guests do. Something you would never be able to afford? You couldn't understand why more people weren’t snapping their hands off to get interviewed.

Ford tucks his hands behind his back, watching you as he does them. “They wont be your friends.”

You glance around to Ford, hoping you can say what he wants to hear. Be confident, not arrogant. Respectful, but understanding. “They’re Hosts. Its hard to make friends with someone when they say the same things over and over again,” You say, adding a little humour to your answer, trying to convey that you can do this, _you got this._

 _Stop asking me questions and give me the damn job!_ Truth is, you were just as curious to spend time with the Hosts, as you were for the idea of a salary bump. But of course you would never say that; such ideas, seeing the Hosts as, the potential for something more? For them or for us, was deeply frowned upon within Delos.

“You underestimate them.” Ford states with quiet contemplation, sounding as more an observation of your character, than a warning.

Bernard’s thumb taps thoughtfully. “Your file says you’re single. Having no ties is good, but could also be, troublesome. Dr Ford?”

You blink at the intimate statement, and not even directed at you, as though Bernard had gotten too used to talking about the ‘thing’ in the room without them hearing or replying to his comments.

You _were_ single, certainly, and had been careful not to state anywhere the nature of your sexuality. You didn't trust the company not to misuse the information somehow. You had heard the stories, how Delos compiled activity data on the staff just as detailed as they did the Hosts. It wasn’t just HR being thorough, it was Big Brother deep state, and as a programmer you knew better than most all the places they could hide your data.

Not that sexuality, _on a more philosophical level,_ even needed a label, as far as you felt. Ticking boxes on a form meant you were complying to a set of standards, and you didn't like that. Love was human nature as much as it is a construct in the Hosts code. You weren’t built to love one person, or love a certain way, and therefore condemning yourself to one set of rules, left out the possibility for other ‘chance encounters’.

“Having no ties, is a better way to be I find. No-one to hold accountable to but yourself,” Ford huffed lightly. You watch his ambling gait, wondering if there is more to his words than he lets on. Nearly everything he said so far sounded almost prophetic, with deeper meaning that the surface statement.

“I doubt any boyfriend _or girlfriend_ I could hypothetically have on the outside would be happy me disappearing for 3-6 months at a time for work. Its not much of a relationship if you're gone the majority of the year.” Other professions did it, sure. Military and politics, wives of officers being dragged around the country or the globe should they want to have any semblance of a relationship with their husbands. But this wasn’t that. Even ifthere was a special someone in your life, they could not go with you. They could not be called at the end of the day to discuss your day. In fact, nearly everything about what happened in the park would remain there, lived and known only by you, and whichever hosts you were to work with. For the duration of that loop at least, until he or she forgot all about it.

“But you _are,_ single.” Bernard repeats, with more emphasis.

“Yes.” You nod. _Thank you for pointing that out, again._ You want to snark, but this is job interview not coffee room chit chat and you need them both to understand you can handle the complexities that come with the job, including the isolation. Being a human among Hosts wasn’t all that it seemed. “Most people here, are. I stay more nights here at the Mesa than I do my own apartment.”

“Indeed,” Bernard muttered, in the same boat as you.

Ford draws up a chair, finally concluding his mulling and sits, facing you head on as though personal space meant nothing at all. The directness of his stare is harsh confronting, and you instinctively recoil a little against the back of your chair, wondering if this is what the Hosts feel like when you or the others peer so closely at them. “You’re not there as a Guest in the Park. Its important to remember that. You can’t interfere with the Guests, or their desires. If they wish to take up a narrative and follow it, they have the ability to choose that path. For you, its simply work.” Ford spoke slowly, carefully, as though each of his words were like a smooth pebble placed in a pond at precise points, creating ripples of thought in your mind, in only the directions he wanted.

The Guests have choices to make, paths they can take if they wish. Black hat or white. Chivalrous orcowardly. Gentle, or violent. If you were to be there as simply an observer, to stay out of their way and fix up the Hosts with a hot rod when they were done, what was there to differentiate you? FromGuests and Hosts. Your heart sinks as though dipping into an icy river, and you feel goosebumps on your skin. “Will people know I’m not a Host?”

Ford licked his lips slowly, as you understood. “No. The whole point of the Park is that it is totally immersive. They don't know who is a Guest, or a Host. It works because its all real, up to a point.” His finger wags at you slowly. “If they cant see that inflection point then we have done our jobs.” Ford smiles, curiously hypnotic in how he looks at you. As though his eyes bore in to your very soul.

Bernard seems perturbed. “But seeing as she's not a Host. She’d have to be a Guest, a Newcomer as far as the Hosts are concerned?”

He shakes his head quickly, and you glance between the two of them. “No Bernard, that will not work. The Hosts, must believe she is one of them. For they know no different, between us and them, there are simply those they are programmed to remember, and Newcomers, whom they have no knowledge of.” Ford links his fingers together in his lap, the prospect of being able to observe a human under controlled conditions for a much longer period of time with his little toys, a teasing and tantalising possibility. “Your Hosts that you will be assigned to maintain, will be programmed to remember you. Your role in their lives will be a recurring one no matter how many times they are shot, or reset.” He would be watching you closely, observe your interactions with them, how they change day to day, over time. He was intrigued, not only by the nature of the Hosts themselves, but also how you would assimilate, given the correct pressures and lengths of time, even knowing what you do. Would you too, see them as beings worthy and capable of love and respect, as Arnold had?

But that was Ford’s own little experiment, unknown to you or Bernard.

Bernard flips the sides of his flexible laptop closed, and smiles reassuringly. “Just think of it as remote working; if you have any problems or they’re in need of greater physical repair than you can do in the field, call it in. The control hub will be able to send a retrieval team, as they do now. You’re just, cutting down their workload.” 

“The Park’s getting popular,” You murmur, Ford’s words heavy in your mind.

Ford unfolds his hands and rests them on his thighs. “Yes. And as such we need to, move with the times. Up our game, so to speak.”

“Which Hosts will I be responsible for working on?” You ask, curious and enthusiastic. The interview seems to be becoming less hypothetical, sounding more like your place in this pilot team of programmers was already in hand.

Bernard seems pleased you’re willing to do this. Its an ask; he knows the job itself isn't so difficult for a competent coder, but giving up 21st century living for water wells and a horse and cart, is more the sacrifice. “The older models. So, The Abernathy family. Teddy Flood. Plus the family at the General Store - “

“Tom and Sally Watts?” You check.

“Thats right.” Bernard takes his glasses off and starts cleaning them on the edge of his blazer. “And Dr O’Rourke. He's not really, integrated in many storylines but he has to be included somewhere.”

Ford pushes on his thighs and stands, returning the chair to its resting place at the side of the room.“Thats everyone in Dolores Abernathy’s loop, when not tampered with.” His small bird like eyes shift as he moves, but they still always seem to be on you, every twitch of your expression talking to him, analysing and deducing things you don't know you’re giving away.

“But it is an oft-used narrative. Thus why we’ve kept her going for so long. She's popular with the Guests, nearly every part of her at some point in time has been replaced, so she functions better than the newer models. But every machine needs tweaking now and again,” Bernard checks his glasses are clean holding them up to the light and replaces them on his nose. His features pull into a smile, socially awkward and unsure whether to acknowledge the implications of such a statement - that Dolores, the mechanical Host in question, was popular enough with humans they all want to fuck her or save her, kill her or kidnap her, maybe all of the above, that the thing had been kept going round and round in her little loop for longer than you had been alive. You pity her, really. You know she's a machine. But you cant help feeling sorry for the lot of them, for what they suffer through. Were their nightmares any different from humans, who have some traumatic event happen to them, only for the mind to repress it like a child, lock it away to protect itself from the pain that it would mean to understand or remember it?

“Sometimes, the oldest stories are best. Be the hero or villain, a pretty face will bring it out in you.” Ford chuckles, resting his hands into the pockets of his black trousers.

You want to move away from the topic of Dolores being pretty, it seems, wrong among the three of you to be discussing - albeit in plaintive semantics, what you all know the Guests do to her. “7 Hosts doesn’t sound like enough. Theres hundreds in service and there was only 10 jobs on the advert - “ You direct them.

“We’re starting slow,” Bernard cuts in. “If it works out, we’ll cycle in more programmers into more storylines across the park.”

“Its own self sufficient little bubble. We’ll simply, keep watch.” Ford smiles. "Like the Gods of Olympus, looking down from upon high." 

“So do you want the job?” Bernard stands and tucks the laptop into this pocket.

You nod enthusiastically. “Oh definitely.” You think by now your interest is obvious.“But, I have a question, before I say yes.” Your giddy excitement clouds the seriousness of what you want to double check. _You've got the job!_ And one heck of a pay rise with it. You try and keep it together for a few more minutes, you could jump around in excitement later when the head of the company wasn't watching. 

“Go ahead,” Ford chuckles, amused at you bullishness. You feel as if this whole thing was a strange pretence simply for Ford to get a measure of you.

Drawing your hands back to your hips, your blazer parts and you rest you weight to one side, your unconscious mind trying to make you appear bigger, more confident than you truly were. The slight downward flicker of Fords gaze toward you did not go unnoticed. “Whats the catch?” You demand, a little firmer than planned. You fold you arms across your chest, his eyes intense and unwavering. It was unsettling.

“As I mentioned, the Park works, because it is entirely immersive for those who, pay to enjoy it.” Ford paces again. “They wont know you, and you don't know them.” He looks at you soberly. “Let this be your warning. Don’t get involved.” Despite how soft spoken he is, the words hang heavily in the closed glass room. “However, if … you find yourself caught up in it, then its up to you, to get of it.”

“But if the Guests don't know I’m not a Host … and the Hosts think I’m a Host, or not a Newcomer at least … “ You go over it slowly, out loud as though you need to run through each set of possibilities to check you've got it right. “…and you’re not gonna step in if something …,” Your lips part, and your hands fold uncomfortably as reality dawns. “You’re saying I could get hurt.” 

Bernard’s mouth twitches, uncomfortable with the truth being laid obviously out in front of him. He was your boss after all, you his employee and part of his team. He was willingly putting you in a position where things, _could_ happen. “You can’t die. The weapons wont discharge on you the same way they're programmed not to on human Guests. The bullets are coded just like everything else.” He tries to sound reassuring, a flicker of a smile directing somewhere at you but missing, finding eye contact hard with fellow humans. “And the Hosts can’t hurt you.”

You angle your jaw, a slow chill creeping up your spine and you fold your arms against it. “But the Guests can.”

Ford took his time before answering, simply watching your mind turn its cogs slowly around, processing that the true nature of this job was not in the programming, at all. “Perhaps, a well timed check of the fencing in the evening would be wise,” He suggested, a gleam in his eye that looked wicked, devilish rather than godly as he was always worshipped as being. “Upon your return, you’re free to repair Peter Abernathy’s inevitable bullet wound, and start the cycle again in the morning.”

Offering you a confirmatory handshake, Bernard seemed none the wiser to the silent exchange passing between your and Ford. “Life’s going to get a little repetitive.”

You shake his hand, finally retreating from Fords laden gaze to smile at Bernard politely. “Routine can be comforting.”

Despite your reassurances, you don't feel comforted at all. 


	3. Chapter 3

They don't give you a day to settle in.

Yesterday, your first evening; you’d barely gotten through dinner before it had thrown more questions than ever at you. Like where did the food come from? The Hosts didn't grow it, did they even _need_ to eat? Were there deliveries on the train every morning, so the Guests could eat real food, drink real whisky? That was the easiest explanation. But if there were you had never noticed. No Hosts were tasked with unloading the train or re-stocking the General Store, just so Dolores could buy her condensed milk every time she went to town to start her journey again. Why was there not a pantry full of condensed milk in the house?

You’d been out riding most of the day, taking in the ‘natural splendour’ as Dolores would tell you, how lucky you were to be out enjoying the sunshine with nothing on your mind but the cattle. It was a damn sight better that the cold clinical lab rooms you usually worked in, yawning and checking your watch for when you could go grab another coffee refill before fiddling with some Host code that kept having repetitive eye twitches, or whatever Bernard tasked you to do.

Instead out here, all you need to concern yourself with was watching the way the herd dips and waves as you guide them, like a flock of starlings making shapes in the sky, and you catch yourself forgetting, just for a second, that none of it was real.

What made it real, or not, anyway? Its was probably all code, but if something felt real, smelt real, if you got yourself a sunburnt neck from hours in the saddle, what part of that was _fake?_

However, contrary to the ease of which Dolores thinks your day had run, you’ve been anxious the whole time. Sure, the cattle go where they were driven. They were programmed to, and the Hosts you were working with, also Ranchers, knew their job and did it with dedication. They were pleasant enough, made idle chatter over lunch on an open fire. It could have been a worse first day, except for the fact all you could think of was what might happen tonight, and how you were going to be on your own to fix them all up.

Come early evening, Dolores lead her mare up the hill on foot. Watching her appear over the horizon with her muslin sack of goods is oddly reassuring, seeing she was doing what she was supposed to.

You’re sitting on a barrel outside the barn, pondering why you're feeling glad she's home before dark. It filled your chest, and made you smile. Was it simply because her daddy had warned her about the bandits in the hills? And now she was home, a relief would wash over him, and he could turn down the gas light flickering on the porch - like a beacon to light her way home, to a low, dull glow.

You think perhaps the bandits won’t come tonight, seeing as she's already home. It should be, her and Teddy coming home later after a long ride, and catching the bandits already there. That was the baseline, unless a Guest interfered.

So someone was already playing. There was no Teddy, just Dolores, giving her daddy a kiss on his cheek and going inside.

It was the gunshots you heard first, the excited hollering that reminds you of a frat boy college party, riding behind the two Hosts known as Rebus and Walter. The herd of them were galloping up the track to the Abernathy Homestead, waving their shotguns in the air. Knowing they’ve bulked up their gang to a good 6 it puts them at even better odds, so were making no attempts at coming quietly.

Your eyes widen, seeing the panic in Peter Abernathys eyes. He fetches his shotgun from above the fireplace, checking if its loaded as his wife pushes pellets into the thick leather ammo belt hung alongside it. “Dolores, stay with your mother.” He barks, his strong arm pointed at the women in his life who nod hurriedly retreating into the kitchen with fearful breaths.

“Daddy be careful!” She yelps, lurching forwards in her mothers arms who tries to coral her spirited daughter to the relative safety of the back of the house.

What do you do? There was no time to pretend to check the fences now, Peter was throwing the front door open planting his feet in a broad intimidating pose, ready to defend his family, his Ranch, and you.

Fuck. Your heart starts to race as you see the shapes and forms of the horses pulling up at the front of the house and their riders dismounting, the familiar voice of Walter’s heavy southern drawl egging Peter on. “Hey ol’ man, where’s that sweet lil’ daughter o’yours?” He jibes, and you’re frozen to the spot stuck somewhere between the front door, and Dolores behind you in the kitchen. You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be in the way. It was your first damn day in the Park and already you’re breaking the cardinal rule without meaning to.

“She been quite the tease in town today,” A more modern voice caws, elbowing his friend and they laugh.

_Guests have a choice, you do not. Stay out of the way and do your job._

“Get off my land!” Peter cocks the shotgun loading it ready to fire, lifting it to shoulder height. “I won’t warn you again!” He takes a threatening step forwards, the anger in his eyes at the very mention of his daughter unmistakable, and your heart is already pained with knowing the inevitable outcome. He doesn't fend them off. He’ll die, his wife will die. Every time, because its programmed to happen. Your head snaps to Dolores, cowering in the kitchen trying to reassure her mother that her daddy knew what to do. Everything was going to be alright.

_You have to get out of there._

Rebus tries to get a look through the window for the gal that caught the Guests eye back in Sweetwater that morning. “Aint nothin’ better than a roll in the hay after a bit o’looting. And I reckon you got a decent stash o’coin up here to loot.” They advance toward the house, 6 of them fanning out, far too many for Peter to manage alone with one shotgun, not point blank especially with no Teddy and no way of picking them off one by one from inside the house, ducking out and in of the window to take shots.

 _Move,_ you urge yourself. This isn't your story. Pulling your pistol from its holster, checking the barrel as you hurry toward Dolores, you try and get yourself out the situation with minimal mess. “I’m gonna sneak out the back, try and get the jump on them from behind.” It sounds plausible enough for her to believe it, while allowing you to go hide somewhere out of sight until its all over, and you can unscrew the floorboard, hook up their cognitive links one by one and remove the data. Easy.

Dolores’s arms flail and grab onto you. “No please stay! Stay with me Frances I’m scared!” She implores you, yelping at the sound of a gunshot and staring fearfully toward the front door.

You shake your head. You all have your part to play, and yours comes after. “Your daddy cant do it all by himself,” You say firmly, trying to wrench yourself from her grip. You eye the back door, and hold your resolve.

“No! No don't go stay here please please - !” She begs and you have to keep looking away, if you look at her you’ll … feel something, want to pull her out the back door to safety with you. But its not real. Your job is real, the salary upgrade is real and the fact you’re going to be doing this over and over for the next 3 months, is real.

“You’ll be fine, everything will be fine,” You lie, the first one you’ve said thats felt wrong the moment it left your lips, and goddamn _you know_ it will haunt you tonight.

Maybe next week you’ll notice the repetitions in her emotive flailing and be less affected by it. But today, this first time of seeing the agony in her eyes as you tear away and retreat to the back door, you feel like a terrible, cowardly person for leaving her. You hear a strained sob as she and her mother huddle together, programmed not to run, awaiting the bandits to come inside only bruised by Peters bullets, to take what victory and treasure they want.

“Go ahead, shoot the ol'man!” Rebus goads the Newcomer.

His friend nudges him, “Go on.” None of them had yet fired a shot, only the one into the air as warning.

“No you do it,” He shoves the gun into his friends hands and points at Peter. “We gotta get past him to get the girl, this is the game dude - “

You creep around the back of the house toward the barn, staying to the shadows watching what you can of the scene play out.

“Fine! Fucking hell get off me,” He grumbles, puffing out his chest. He doesn’t look more than 20 years old, and you roll your eyes at the lot of them, thinking this is just fun, a boys weekend away where they can be macho pricks and no-one would notice. He raises his arm and shoots at Peter with little warning, but having never fired a gun he misses, the bullet hitting the white wood panels on the front of the house, the wood splintering loudly. But its enough to start the gun battle off. Peter Abernathy fires a return shot, missing at first, re-cocking the shotgun and firing again getting Walter in the shoulder.

“Fuck man!” The Guests jostle back as the Host beside them gets shot, and a wildness lights excitedly in their eyes, all 4 and the remaining Rebus start shooting at Peter simultaneously. You hear Dolores scream as she sees her daddy's body ripped up with bullets, his figure jerking side to side in the air with the impact, before stumbling falling flat.

You hear Dolores’ pain rip form her throat. “Daddy!” She screams, escaping her mothers arms to run to her father, dropping to her knees crying over him, her arms draping over his broad strong chest, now devoid of breath, or life. She's trembling, her hands shaking as they search over him over the bleeding wounds that riddle his body and she cant handle it, she's frozen beside him trembling with a loss she cant process.

You’re hidden behind the farthest corner of the house by now, a good vantage point to watch and make sure they're done before you emerge later. You lean, peering around the edge of the house to see whats happening, your heart hammering wildly. It feels so real. The adrenaline in your veins, making you shake your breathing shallow and you're back here hiding like they could get you too, like your house really is being raided by Bandits.

But of course, they could get you, couldn't they. Ford had made that clear, the bullets cant kill you, but the Guests can hurt you. _They don't know you're human._ You’re dressed like a rancher, a girl in breeches and shirt and a leather guns belt at your hips, they might even _enjoy_ emasculating you, taking what little power you have by dressing like a rancher and not in a cumbersome cotton dress.

The Hosts might not be able to kill you, but .. could they do other things? Bernard hadn’t been clear. Sure they act within their loop, but Guests can get themselves beaten up while out in Pariah, taken prisoner and tied up on a tree in the baking sun. Thats the work of Hosts, not men.

Dolores screams again, and you freeze. Taking a few hard breaths you dare yourself to look back around, and you’re shaking so hard. Rebus is dragging her away from her fathers dead body by the scruff of her neck, her legs are kicking out helplessly in the dirt as she flails, but can’t fight.

Rebus hefts her up into his arm and she fights, trying to tear herself out his arm just as his free hand rubs around her waist and over her chest. Dolores tries to hold face, staring at them with an angled jaw and hate burning in her eyes as Rebus paws her breast in his hand.

The display has them all convinced but you feel sick knowing she cant really fight them. She has no coding for that, she has no weapons privileges, cant shoot a gun, cant punch them in the face. Only wriggle and get away. “Right then boys, which o’you gonna stake her first?” Rebus breathes his hot whisky filled breaths over her neck with a laugh, throwing her forwards towards the group of Guests. “I ain’t picky about seconds or thirds, jus’ means she’s nice and slick for me.”

You can’t watch anymore, theres so much adrenaline in you and you’re one name call away from them discovering you, too. What the fuck had you gotten yourself into? What was Ford’s game? You spin around, doubling over to chuck up a belly full of acid, your fear splattering on the dusty ground making you cough.

The one guy catches her, shoving her towards his friend like a thing, not a person. “I dunno man. She doesn’t really look like she's into it.”

“Fuck that got to do with it?” Rebus laughs, tucking his thumbs into his belt and spitting some chewed up tobacco on to the floor.

One of the Guests takes the lead. “If you're not gonna do it I will, I heard they're built to be like virgins every time,” He grins, taking Dolores’ hand but she doesn’t want to go, she's shaking her head and sniffling meekly and he’s forced to drag her back struggling and screaming toward the house, over her daddy’s dead body to find a surface to fuck her against.

“Don’t do this please … you don't have to do this!” She cries out, and you hear a thud as she hits the floorboards. He must have smacked down, maybe across the jaw - you’ll find out later when you see the bruises and heal them. You wait, soundlessly in the dark wishing you couldn't hear it, the sounds that tear form her lungs quietening to frightened yelps and whimpers as he rapes her, or so he must be.

You lean against the wall of the house, your legs losing strength and buckling slowly. You slide down and sit on the floor in the dark, staring at the starry night, wanting to block out the feelings its evoking in you.

_She's a Host. Its not real._

They swap over, a second set of boots tramping up the porch steps into the house and you hear her cry out again, “C’mere sweetheart,” he says, you don't know which, and you don't know want to know.

There is sounds of material tearing, laughing voices and what is likely Dolores scrabbling away on the floor only to be dragged back by her ankle and flung onto her back again. “No no please! Don’t no please!” You hear her beg for mercy.

_Its not real._

But … what if they found you? Tried it with you too? Then, it _would_ be real.

Why is it real for you and not for her? This danger, this fear. You’re both feeling it. You’d both feel the pain, the humiliation, degraded in the same way. Sitting there in the dark doing nothing feels wrong, _so goddamn wrong._

But you're not there to be the moral conscience of the Park. If you don't do it, someone else would take the job and not give a shit, have a smoke and wait for them to be done and maybe take a turn for themselves like those sick fucks downstairs.

You were being soft, you were caring about the feelings of a Host. You cover your face in your hands rubbing up and down and sighing defeatedly. You had 3 months of this. What the fuck were you going to do tomorrow?

——————

You dragged Peter Abernathy, his wife and daughter into a neat row in the living room. Walter you left outside in the dirt. Stupid as it was, you didn't want to grant the bastard the privilege of coming in the house, even dead.

They were Hosts. You knew that, staring down at them cold and motionless on the floor, blood seeping from they bodies and staining the rug beneath them. _Seems real enough,_ you huff as you sit cross legged on the floor besides Dolores, opening up your computer and connecting to her unit.

There was something, almost reverent about how you had lain her out, righted her skirts back down over her thighs and smoothed the creases of the material to its usual smooth cornflower blue. Giving someone their last rites, a _real person_ that is, was something done with care, respect, with almost a gentle holiness to it. You wanted to give her that, at least. Perhaps it alleviated your misplaced guilt, caring for her now - though she didn't know it.

But to awake anew would be the gift you gave her.

You scroll through her code and read the traumatic events in her memories as lines of letters and numbers, remarking at how like _nothing_ it seems, just read as abstract code. Seeing it described only like this, you can imagine were she on a silver metal slab in the Mesa, over and over again - would you, similar to those in the chop shop, simply click archive. And the memory would leave her mind, a blank slate ready for a new adventure in the morning, doing your job with little to no thought about what these strings of numbers really describe.

So you do the same. Select the events of the evening and archive them. Update. You move the file with a flick of your finger and review the base code underneath. The star chart of her personality stares back at you, the strengths and weaknesses of it.

Dolores was considerate, kind, saw the best in people - which given what they do to her was almost ironic, and child like in its determination. She was wilful, thoughtful, and ultimately destined to think beyond her abilities. Of some day she and Teddy could settle down together, perhaps down south as he always suggested. She was a dreamer, and that ability to see beauty was what made her so endearing, you had fallen prey to it within two days.

With a smooth brush of your finger you could make her stronger, bolder - give her at least a chance to get away? Its tempting.

But its a power you feel guilty about wielding - besides the fact the alteration would get noticed, you already ponder if its _right,_ having this power over someones personality.

You leave her unchanged, repeating the process with Peter, the mother and Walter, then work your way through them with the hot iron, healing up the bullet holes with ease.

One by one you drag them back to their places, Peter to the porch, the mother to the kitchen, and Dolores to her bedroom. The last, you take the most care with.

It had never occurred to you how this happened before. You spoke to them in the labs, told her it was time to go, and off she would walk. Did the team take her in a buggy back to the Ranch? How did she get back here in time, every time? None of it made any sense and thinking about it just got confusing.

You can feel a tired headache coming on, the stress of hearing the heady excitement of the Guests, her whimpering sobs as they abused her, your guilt at sitting in the dark. You rub your forehead back and for with a firm press of your fingers, staring at her on her bed, her open eyes staring emptily across the room.

You probably shouldn't do this, but otherwise she would wake in her dress and wonder why she's not in her nightdress. _Thats what you tell yourself._ It simply to maintain the integrity of the storyline.

Lowering yourself to the edge of her bed, you sit beside her, sucking in your bottom lip staring at her. “Dolores. Being yourself back online.” You say, the voice command clear and purposeful.

Her eyes flutter, blinking awake with subtle confusion as she takes in her surroundings, pushing herself up on her arms to sitting, her hand touching her golden spun locks from her face - that gesture again, until her gaze settles on you. “Oh, hello,” She says in a neutral tone. Like meeting a stranger in the park, someone passing by and greeting her you would reply the same simply to have good manners.

You shift a little closer to her, leaning your arm over her legs peering closely at her. It was your first lone coding job, you want to make sure you've not fucked it up. “Do you remember me?”

The corners of her lips lift. “Of course,” She's looking at you now, not through you, and you let out a tight breath you didn't know you were holding. “How could I forget? Silly.” Dolores lays her hand over yours and gives it a familiar squeeze, appearing amused that you could even think such a thing. “Were you saying something? I must have drifted off.” Dolores felt like she needed to excuse her absent minded-ness. She couldn't quite remember what you had been talking about.

You shake your head, distracted by the gentle pressure of her hand on yours. “No, thats alright. But its getting late.” You return the gesture, squeezing her hand reassuring and firm. She was back, she was herself again - and as it should be, seemed to remember nothing of what had transpired downstairs only a short time before. Unburdened by the trauma you were carrying in the pit of your belly her eyes were roaming over your face for answers to questions she couldn't quite fathom. “You should change.”

Something didn't feel quite right, and Dolores couldn’t put her finger on it. “Oh … sorry I’m not feeling quite myself.” The repetitive phrase irks you. It just reminds you that her lines of speech are fabricated and written, not really for you. She looks down at the token blue dress with a frown of confusion. Yes, she could change for bed. “Fetch me a fresh nightdress? In the drawer, right over there.”

You rise from the bed and follow the point of her finger to the chest, pulling the heavy wooden drawer open and selecting the right one. Pale cream cotton, pink ribboning in the detailing on the chest. Its not your taste, and you wonder what she thinks of it. Perhaps you’re just too used to seeing her in blue. “Honestly I’m not feeling quite myself either.” You murmur, thumbing the thin material in your hands as you lean your hip on the drawer convincing it back in.

“Is something wrong?” You feel her hand on your hip, and you jerk at the unexpected touch blinking at her in surprise. You hadn’t even heard her move, or the bed creak. Dolores tilts her head, her teeth worrying her bottom lip making it blush pink. “Sweetheart?” She prompts you. You step around to face her, still clutching her nightdress contemplatively. You’d never heard her say that before. _Was this part of her script?_

Your lips part to speak, staring at hers, then her eyes, and you huff, catching yourself empty of words or explanation. “I - … no. Everything's fine, Dolores.” She gives your hip a playful nudge with her own, and takes the nightdress.

“Well as long as you’re sure.” Depositing it on the bed, she starts to unbutton her dress from chest to waist, and shirks out of it letting the worn material pool at her feet. “You know you can talk to me, don't you?” Dolores says unexpectedly. She’s unlacing her under-bust corset and the tingling in the tips of your fingers are enough to tell you you shouldn't be watching. “We’ve been friends so long and, friends don't keep secrets,” She reminds you, an innocence to the way she sees things that makes your gut ache, especially the heat she's creating in you right now.

The corset falls away leaving her in just a cotton shift, which she plans to exchange for the nightdress, at least turning away with a bashful smile. _Fuck._ You realise whats happening. You’s seen her naked in the glass control rooms in the Mesa, but this was _so_ different. She wasn’t in sleep mode, or in Analysis; she was simply herself and at ease with changing in front of you. After all you were old friends and Dolores thought nothing of it. The curve her waist was just perfect, the rise of her ribs wrapped in pale snow-soft skin. You catch a glimpse of her breast as she lifts her shift up and over her head, and your cheeks blush a deep rouge.

You hurriedly turn away as well, staring at the white wooden wall shaking your head at yourself. You’d just repaired her, archived the memory of a sexual assault, a gang-rape that had broken her down to pitiful mewls, and yet you were standing there finding her form and shape attractive just as they had. “Perhaps I should go. Its getting late, like I said.” You clear your throat. _This was wrong._

Dolores pulls the nightdress over her head, then leans down, folding up her dress and laying it on the chest for the morning, coming next to you. “You don't want to stay? Talk?” Her voice is soft and suggestive, programmed to pull you in. Her fingers are deftly tying the little pink ribbon at her chest, almost designed to make you watch.

You shake your head again, slipping away from the proximity of her, escaping to the door. “No. Gotta head out early, move the herd up to pasture.”

“Oh, of course.” Theres a twinge of disappointment in her voice. Dolores plays her hands at her waist awkwardly, wondering what she's done or said wrong. She dips her gaze for a moment, then looking up again just smiles neutrally. “Well, goodnight then.”

Nodding, you take your leave. “Goodnight Dolores.” You yank the bedroom open, and give her space alone with her thoughts. Clicking the door handle to pull it closed, you stand there, unmoving. Putting your palm flat on the wood, you close your eyes and wonder if you can somehow convey to her everything you feel, and would want her to understand.

Dolores watches the gap at the bottom of the door, the shapes and shadows of your feet still there. She walks up to the door, turning her head to rest her ear to the wood, listening through it. You were still there. She could hear your breathing, the tiny creak of the floorboards as you unknowingly shift your weight through your hips.

Why was tonight different? Dolores finds herself puzzled by her thoughts, by you. You didn’t usually stay so close beside her, but you seemed, _worried._ Worried for _her,_ something behind your eyes you didn't want to talk about.

She could always read Teddy, what he was thinking, what he wanted. But he had to leave, and you didn’t. Dolores looks across the room, catching her reflection in the mirror on the wall and for a second, something flickers. You’re leaning over her, coming into the round field of her vision with pained concern. Your features look sad, pained, and you brush her hair from her face tenderly, only to look at your fingers, red smudged on them.

Dolores blinks, and the image reflected back in her eyes disappears. She plays her hands at her waist, the image in her mind troubling her, bewildered by it. Dolores puts it down to a moment of deja-vu and wanders back to her bed, climbing in and settling herself to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

You roll over in the night, unable to sleep. Its been 3 weeks, and you’re doubting whether your decision to take this job was really the right one. You had been naive, stupid even to believe this was going to be an easy 3 month rotation, enticed by the pay packet and being able to experience the Park. To be like the Guests, be a participant in one of the adventures you had watched from the Control room, that the Hosts talked about when you were tweaking their behaviour code.

Instead, you were beginning to question what was real anymore. You were having some sort of existential crisis in the middle of the night like an idiot. Apart from the occasional moo from the herd, and the faint chirrup of crickets in the long grass, the night was silent. You were far enough from Sweetwater not to hear any of that, and the Abernathys were all asleep.

You cant just lie there. The silence is making it worse, for all you can hear is the echoes of Dolores’ screams, going around and around in your head. The strangled yelps as she's dragged to the barn and thrown in the hay, the door slamming. You rub your hands over your face and press the tears from your eyes.

She was so _scared._ Once or twice Dolores had even called your name, wondering where you were. Her daddy shot dead and you the only one left she could cry to for help? Why weren't you coming? She didn’t know you were hiding, curled up in a ball shaking and hating yourself more and more each time, pathetically covering your hands over your ears trying to block out the sounds. _Don't you touch her!_ You wanted to scream.

Rebus had sounded confused, he wasn’t programmed with any knowledge of you, so had just made some snarky quip and ignored her, not thinking there was anyone else there. But _god,_ you had heard her.

Dolores needed you.

It was so _stupid,_ and yet it wasn’t. She's a Host. But … she was hurting.

You sit up in bed, drawing up your nightdress bunching it in your fists to look at the dark rounded bruise on your thigh. You had timed it as other shots were still firing, so no-one had heard an extra one, or thought to look for where it came from. You smooth the pad of your forefinger over it, stroking the discoloured skin with guilty fascination. You’d known the bullet wouldn't penetrate the skin, wouldn't injure you beyond a heavy bruise.

But it had been enough, to make _you_ hurt, too.

You probably shouldn’t have done it. HR would have a field day on your personnel file if they knew. But they were unlikely to see, in amidst the narrative you were not important like the Guests were. Swinging your legs out of bed you pad over to the full length mirror furnished in your room, and stare at your reflection. There were strong muscles building on your thighs from riding all day, your arms were more toned. The rounded purple mess on your left thigh that you had done to yourself. That stared back at you too, like an ink blot on paper. You could see your weakness now.

It shouldn't make you feel better, but it does. That you had something to show for the trauma she was going through, and couldn’t remember.

“Are you awake?” You hear Dolores murmur through the door. You glance over your shoulder, dropping the length of your nightdress down quickly as you see the door handle depress. She pushes the door open gently, careful not to make a sound and wake her daddy down the hall. “I thought I heard you.” She says, her voice smooth like vanilla cream, a soft smile on her features. Her whole body leans back slowly, using her weight to press the door shut, and stares at you from there. Her forehead creases as she frowns softly.

“Dolores,” You peer at her, surprised, and yet not. She was far more perceptive than you gave her credit for. Its only been 3 weeks, but you know you and all the other programmers have been vastly underestimating her, maybe all the Hosts.

She walks across the room and sits on the end of your bed, tucking her hands under her thighs either side of her. “We need to talk.” Dolores is hunched, her shoulders rolled forwards and taking slow breaths in and out, before finding the courage to lift her head, move her gaze from her lap to you. Her eyes look serious and firm. 

You’re not sure whats prompted this. You’d reset her back to her baseline, like every night. Taken her upstairs, woken her briefly so she changed her clothes and went to bed, believing everything to be as it always was. “You know I’m always here for you, Dolores.” You say, forgetting your own problems to come and sit beside her. This was the role that Bernard had programmed into her, that you had worked there for years, almost part of the family, a trusted friend.

“I’ve been having these, dreams,” Dolores admitted, with a troubled heaviness to her. “They’re the same, every night.” She takes your hand and pulls it into her lap for comfort. She runs her fingers over yours, the slow growing callouses in the grip of your fingers and palm from the physical farm work you had never done before.

You let her do it, the programmer in you curious, the human in you worried for a friend. “Good dreams, or bad?” You push gently. You give them the concept of dreams - nightmares, in case of poor memory wipes but you had done them yourself for 3 weeks straight. And you’re nothing if not good at your job. So her admittance bothers you.

“Thats the thing, they don't _feel_ like … dreams,” Dolores says with disquiet as she lifts her eyes to meet yours. The pale watery blue of her eyes seem to beg for calm, as if there is too much of a storm in her mind and not enough ways to dispel or express it. “They trouble me.”

You close your hand around hers and the gesture seems to relax her, her shoulders dropping their tension a little. “Would it help to, say what they're about? Maybe you’ll feel better.” You suggest, the idea both useful for her _and_ for you. If you can find out what she thinks she's dreaming then you can narrow down what part of her programming you need to scrutinise for flaws. “You know, so its not just in your mind anymore, you've said it out loud, and its gone.”

“Do you think so?”

“Mhm.” You smile gently.

Dolores turns her head, and stares across the room distancing herself from what she can see physically in-front of her, to the images in her mind. “I see you. And me. And my Daddy … but -“ She trails off.How her head it just tilted to the left reminds of you of programming interactions, asking her to step into analysis for a moment, its almost chilling seeing her do the same independently. Was she, putting herself through some kind of self-test procedure? But then as she continues, you see her eyes aren’t empty like they are during your diagnostics, just distant. The difference is subtle, but its there. Life, versus the machine imitation of it. “You look so sad, and you're always crying like you’ve lost something, lost _me._ But I’m right there, and I cant reach out, I cant move… I-I cant speak.”

You'd never heard a Host talk of something like this. What was she seeing? Some fragment of memory, it must be new as you were featuring in it. So whatever change she was experiencing was happening only since you’d been present in the park. “Strange…,” You murmur. 

“Its like, I’m far away, and I know… somehow, no matter what I try and say or, _do,_ you cant hear me. Like I’m not really there, at all.” Dolores leans her head on your shoulder, curling against your side with a soft bemused sigh, knowing no rational explanation.

Her description struck you as particularly unusual, and nothing you had ever heard the Hosts speak of before. Clementine would complain of not sleeping well, Lawrence would have nightmares of his wife and daughter being killed and being unable to stop the perpetrator. These were normal, chunks of past storylines that somehow echoed back in the current coding. Like any computer, things glitched. Or just stopped working after a while and needs a full factory reset.

You turn you head and kiss the soft blonde locks atop her head, humming thoughtfully. Her hands are still twined with yours now on your lap, confessing her troubles to you in the middle of the night just as two friends would. _Or were programmed to._ Were you starting to live the loop, just as content in it as her?

This thought bursts the bubble that had encapsulated you, and you lift your head again, an unease with how easily you had kissed her and not noticed. You were starting to treat her as human, even when no-one was watching. The desire for such closeness _to be real,_ presses heavily on your chest. With her or with someone on the outside…to be gifted this, mirage of such intimacy with a woman makes you desire it even more. It ached, knowing it could all just be programming. Or is it? She came to you, she _wants_ to be in here. You're enjoying her company and her own musings are a merry distraction from your own repetitive dark thoughts.

But still. The knowledge that she is somehow having dreams or flashbacks of - then the realisation hits you. She sees you, herself, her daddy. You, leaning over her, which meant she was lying on the floor, looking up … _no._ A cold ripple runs up your spine.

Thats not possible. Theres _no way_ she could still be seeing…recording, remembering what was happening while you reset her code. She wasn’t even awake then. _May you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber._ The voice command knocked her programming right out, as if losing consciousness so you could move her and the others, work on them.

The Hosts were always put in sleep mode one way or another after the end of a narrative, so you could work on their cognition at rest. Besides the fact, it was unnerving to programme a computer than was trying to talk to you, cry, yell, or whatever it was pretending to feel; it was impossible to tweak _moving_ code. Sure you could upload and archive certain data sets and configurations, but you couldn't write the code as it was in use.

You ease Dolores upright, needing her to look at you. “Am I the only one moving? In your dream?”

If you were right, this was a huge discovery, one that could change everything you thought about them. That they were still aware, inside somewhere even while ‘switched off’? You dare to think the word _conscious._

“Yes. Just you.” She says slowly. “Theres like, eery silence in the house, the only kind of silent you get when a calf falls out their mother and you’re all waiting for it to take its first breath. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. That kind of silence, everything caught up in it in that one moment. Except you.” Her head tilts, and reaches to play your hair behind your ear. You’re caught off guard by the gesture, then shake your head at yourself.

“Am I holding anything?” You ask.

Her hand falls to her thighs, shrugging softly. “I don't know … why?”

“Try and remember.” You insist.

Dolores sighs in frustration and stares past you, looking, _searching_ this dream, this memory. You peer at her, wondering what it must be like for her to have al these things going on she cant understand. “I don’t … yes. Its in your lap.”

“What is it? Can you see?” You shuffle an inch closer to her as if this could help you see what she was seeing.

Her hands flap. “I told you,I cant move, … cant even turn my head. Why are you asking me?” She bleats, exasperated at you. 

Ignoring whatever is holding you back, you cup her cheek, stroke your thumb there and implore her to try. You need to know if this is, what you think it is. “Please Dolores.”

She fixes on the object in her mind. She can see everything around it, but not _that._ Like, its blocked. “It doesn’t look alike anything to me,” She utters, the warmth of her voice lost, like it was in the labs.

Your laptop.

You drag air into your lungs, then inhale and exhale a tight, determined one. So she _was_ remembering. Now you just have to figure out the problem with the code, what you were doing wrong, and fix it. As well as put her off the idea that any of this was important or prophetic - which in some ways, given her curious nature was the harder of the two tasks. “I don’t think your dreams will be a problem, Dolores,” You tell her firmly, confident you could fix this. It was your job, and you were given this job for a reason. You had to believe in your abilities.

Dolores straightens, apparently taking offence to your comment, or at least, stepping back from the cliff edge of something becoming clear. Dolores felt like she was surrounded by fog, and if only she could take another step farther thought it then the horizon would be visible to her, all paths and answers laid out on a bed of sea grass. “Oh, I shouldn't have bothered you. They’re just nightmares, its silly really,” She stands, the atmosphere shifting quickly. She smooths her nightdress over her hips, tucks her loose blonde hair behind one ear feeling awkward and alien in your room. “Some day I’ll understand. I’ll go - “

You heart sinks, and without thinking your hand snaps out to grab her forearm. “No, don’t.” You tug her softly, and she looks around at you, so anxious and unsure. Should she have told you? Would you think her just an idle dreamer, lost her footing in real problems, real life. There were stories about what happened to young women who got too thoughtful or educated. It wasn’t productive, she was told by the Marshall. Having women be free thinkers like that. Disrupts the natural order of things. “They’re not silly.” You say emphatically. “If they mean something to you then, they mean something.”

Dolores sits back down, nodding slowly. She's trusting you, and you feel oddly like you’re abusing that just thinking about editing her coding. Maybe she deserved a little clarity, a little freedom to mull over her existence.

“If anything, happened to me. You would be there, wouldn't you?” She asks suddenly, and the question makes you stop a moment. Dolores was meant to be unaware of anything untoward in her world, never question the nature of her reality, never questioning the repetitions, the Newcomers all welcomed each and every time looking for their little slice of the new world. To imagine, even debate the possibility of something happening to her, putting her in danger? She was veering _way_ off her programming. “You’ve always been there for me.” She says, and you’re glad ‘ _truth_ ’ is still in her mind.

“Of course,” You gush, probably too much. But you cant help it. She's smart and beautiful and thoughtful. She worries for you as she does her parents and Teddy and holds you close to her heart in ways the other Hosts, hell even programmers could never understand. And more than all that, you catch yourself _wanting_ to be the person she sees in you. “You know that.” You wrap your arms around her shoulders and draw her close. “I’ll protect you, Dolores.” You murmur, closing your eyes guiltily. You find her melting against you, curling her arms up into her chest as you hold her, just as guilty for enjoying the feeling of safety you gave her.

If you weren’t sure before, you are now. You’ve lost. She wasn’t just a Host. Ford could go fuck himself. He wasn’t here, he wasn’t living this reality.

_Its real. She's real. You can’t let bad things keep happening to her._

She tucks her legs up onto the bed, leaning into you like a child. “Can I sleep here, just tonight?” Dolores murmurs. “In case they come back?” Theres a pining desperation in her voice, that light southern lilt delicately etching itself in your heart, making you forget all about the fact that she's likely programmed to be endearing like this, to need you, to want you. This doesn’t feel like that. Perhaps you're a weak human pulled in by it. Perhaps she means it. _You want to believe._

“In case … _who_ comes again?” You lean back a touch so she can shift her head, peer up at you from inside your arms.

“My bad dreams,” Dolores replies, like it should be obvious what she meant.

You let out a breath. Good. She didn't remember the bandits, at least. “Oh.” You puff, gratefully. “If you like.” You pull back the other side of the covers from where you had been lying, to show there was space for the both of you.

“You wouldn't mind?” Dolores waits a beat, watching you shift up the bed and tuck your feet under the blankets to settle in, keeping to the edge so there was a nice inviting gap for her. You pat the space and smile.

“No. I wouldn't mind at all, Dolores.”

She bounds up the bed and tucking her nightdress down her thighs, slips in next to you, lying down onto her side and flicking her hair back over her shoulders looking up expectantly, waiting for you. You tuck one arm in and lie down behind her, wrapping your arm over her waist holding the covers over the both of you.

You huff, shaking your head at yourself. What were you doing?

You don't care. You felt happy, and as she laces her fingers through yours clutching your arm tighter around her, you can almost _feel_ her smile, too.

—————

Elsie swings back on her roll-chair, screen in hand as she marches down the corridor with a determined stride. She knocks the glass door and pushes inside. “Bernard, are you busy? We’ve got a problem.”

The tired Head of Programming takes his glasses from his nose, wiping across his eyes with his sleeve. “What is it?” He asks with a breath, readying himself for another problem to solve. He replaces the glasses and peers at the screen Elsie proffers down to him.

“Look here.” The brunette taps the screen starting the footage off. “This is from yesterday. Its the Abernathy loop, one of your programmers is going off narrative.” She sticks her hips to one side and folds her arms waiting for his reaction, not that he was a particularly overt in his gestures, this warranted at least a mild murmur.

Bernard gives her a curt look over his glasses. “She hasn’t got a narrative, she's only there to maintain the Hosts.”

Elsie huffs. “Yeah, well she's playing her part a little _too_ well. Check the footage.”

The camera zooms around, the usual Hosts in action. Peter Abernathy standing in his doorway, the lawman prepared to do whatever it takes for his family. Rebus and Walter are antagonising him, a pair of Newcomers trying their hand at a quick and easy shoot-m’up, hollering as bullets start to fire. Dolores is heard screaming, but then the back door opens. You pull her out tucking your arm around her waist guiding her from the kitchen into the night, anxiously looking about you with your gun in the air, not just acting a supporting player role anymore. She clings to you, and coming up on Walter you fire before he gets a word in. Dolores turns and shelters in your shoulder from the sight of it, and you hush her, brush her hair with your palms telling her _we need to go, c’mon keep going!_

Bernard rubs his beard with interest. You had always seemed the quiet, steady sort. Sociologically and Psychologically this was fascinating to watch, but maybe that’s not what Elsie was trying to highlight. She snatches the tablet back with a roll of her eyes and fast-forwards through the footage.

The scene has played out, Dolores lays motionless in the stack of hay, traumatised and unaware if they've gone or are still there. Bernard watches as the door eases open, how she whines fearfully not knowing who is on the other side, then starts crying anew when she sees you. You’re clutching your waist, hobbling through the door and falling to your knees beside her. “I’m sorry … I’m so sorry I tried…” You say, sounding just as broken as she looked. Dolores pushes up on her hands, the aching tenderness to her ribs and hips evident in how she moves - but the yearning for safety is stronger than her pain.

“Frances? I thought - I saw them shoot you dead …,” Her voice cracks as she hangs her arms around your neck, curling into your body and you cradle her.

“No, they got me bad …,” You tighten your arms around her cool and shivering form, cradling her in your lap the closer the climbs into you, seeking the safety she's never been allowed at the end of her narrative. “But I’m not dead.” You feel like you deserve to be, for not being what she needed when it came to it. They had bested you, despite the inability of their bullets to draw blood. “I’m so sorry, Dolores, I tried…” You breathe into her hair, your own salty tears mixing with hers as they tumble down her cheeks.

“My daddy’s dead, mother likely too,” Dolores eyes drift to you for a confirmation she doesn’t really need. She nods, the merest whisper of a movement. “I thought I was all alone.”

You squeeze her with all the strength you have left in you, then hold her back to look her square in the eyes. “I wont leave you, I wont let you be alone not ever Dolores I swear to you I’ll get better at this, I wont let it keep happening…” You urge, insistent and sincere in your desire. You fucked up this time, but next time you wont. You wont take any chances.

Bernard hummed thoughtfully.“I’ll highlight it to Ford.” He handed the tablet up to her from behind his desk, the footage still playing silently as he pulled out his mobile searching for Robert Ford. Elsie watched you stand, keeping your arms around Dolores and scooping her under her knees to carry her in your arms, the rags of her blue dress dirtied and in places, bloodied.

Elsie was torn about it. She’d played dress up too sometimes for the big updates or Host recalls, she knew the allure of a fresh set of clothes and surroundings. Easy to get lost in it the idea of it sure, but you had lost perspective. You weren’t a Guest, you knew the magic behind the curtain, hell you unscrewed your floorboards and used that hot rod on Peter Abernathy with nightly diligence. Yet you treated her differently.

The younger programmer looked unimpressed, rolling her eyes at you and flipped the sides of the tablet shut. “You really want him to get involved? She’s one of us - “

“Its Fords team. I’ll put in a call.” Bernard waved his hand at her to wait outside, earning himself another eye roll from the headstrong woman vacating his office with a huff.

Elsie felt the door close on her petite ass and half turned, leaning on the glass wall lazily. Something was nagging on her, this sort of thing didn't come from nowhere. Like with the Hosts, all behaviours had a root. A starting point. Something that grew inside you until you acted on it.

She clicked open the screen again as she waited, rewinding to the days previous, watching the change in reverse. How you tried to pull her out the back door. How you tried to persuade Peter Abernathy not to confront them. How you and Teddy banded together to take on the Hosts, but only when there was no Guests involved. How you had snuck out the kitchen door alone, stayed out of sight as you were meant to, you started off right at least. Then she saw something, the reflection of moonlight on metal, and she frowned zooming right in, and watched you shoot yourself in the thigh. “Fuck,” She mutters, checking forward this time from the first time she had seen it, more closely examining your hiding place for evidence each go around the loop. You were shooting yourself on purpose right when Dolores getting taken. No wonder you were compelled to save her, its survivors guilt. Sort of. Elsie started debating if this could be considered the same thing given that Dolores was a Host, but just as she frowned at herself in thought Bernard gestured her attention.

“So? What’d we do?” Elsie said as she swung back in, letting the door fall shut behind her

Bernard sat heavily in his chair, elbows perched up on the armrests, hands together in a little contemplative arch. “We do nothing. Let it play out.” He replied slowly. He wasn’t certain if he agreed on Fords hands off approach, but it was his call.

“You’re fucking serious? Shouldn't we at least pull her for behavioural analysis?” Elsie quipped.

Her boss _almost_ pulled the corner of his lips into a smirk, which was as far Bernards facial expressions went. “She’s not a Host, Elsie.”

“Yeah well. Her fucking psychology needs looking at.” Elsie complained, trying to be the rational voice in the room. “She’s crying over a Host body and comforting her before the reset.” The tablet clattered on his desk as she laid it out for him, jabbing her finger at the screen. “And check this out. I rolled back the footage. She shot herself in the hand. See here? And yesterday in the leg. She does it _every time_.”

He glanced away from her, watching another Host being worked on. Everything so orderly in the labs, he wondered what Ford was really doing, risking the gentle stability of the game by adding additional players on the board. “We’re not in charge of her behaviour. Only the Hosts.”

“Except tonight she got herself in the way, shot up top to bottom look -“ Elsie argues.

“Let it play, Elsie.” Bernard raises his voice, needing to assert his position, something he never felt comfortable doing. They were a team, an everyones opinion was a valued one. But in this instance, he'd been given his orders by Ford and couldn't deviate from them. So whether Elsie approved of the decision or not, he had to keep a handle on her. Know she's not going to go off searching for something and cause trouble by finding it. 

“Will you just take a look?” Her arms flap at her sides. 

"Its just a few bruises." He felt guilty for saying it, the words sounding wrong. Saying something he didn't believe in _was_ wrong, surely? He had felt this way when Ford had initially lain out the details of your position, whom could hurt you and in what way. “Whatever she's doing to herself, the Hosts go through a lot worse.” He reminded her. He knew then, _even then_ putting one of his team in a purposely dangerous position was the wrong thing to do. But Robert Ford was his boss, and his friend. 

“They’re Hosts thats their job,” Elsie snarked. She didn't mean to sound, well … _mean_ about it. But thats why the Park was created. You weren't one of the merchandise. Up until a month ago you’d been right up here working alongside one another, hell Elsie knew she could be sent out on the next team if this pilot project of Fords worked out. She didn't want to find herself in the same boat you were. She’d wanted to ask you out for a drink, not end up in joint therapy sessions after continual rape storylines gone wrong.

Bernard held his once meditate postured hands up in surrender to her stubbornness. “But, I’ll take a look if... it means you, leave my office.”

“Thanks. Thats super reassuring.” Her deadpan comeback lost on Bernard, she growls to herself as she walks out, storming down the hall in search of a strong coffee.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a little longer. I wanted to make sure I got her developing consciousness right, and that she and the reader had time to go through the process together. I found it super hard writing her fluctuating levels of awareness, but I think it works and for the reader too, her feelings developing with a more awake Dolores. 6500k words later i did it, ha. Thanks for waiting. Hope you enjoy!

You’d carried her upstairs, like a bride across the threshold, telling her to keep her eyes shut as you passed her fathers dead body. You didn’t want her to see the bloody mess that had been made of him, spare her this final pain, on top of everything she had already had no choice but to endure. Dolores had lain on your lap, her tears staining on your breeches as they wordlessly rolled out of her eyes, unable to verbalise what she felt. _Violated._

You had let her lie there as long as she wanted, your own feelings of utter uselessness filling the room and raining on you like a cloud. You tangle your fingers in her hair, stroking the gold spun locks, craving to hold her safe,“Forgive me,” You beseech her through tear soaked lips, your words blubbering pitifully and you’re glad she cant see. 

One arm she has tucked into her chest, the other lays over your thighs holding onto you like you’re the last scrap of driftwood in a sea of ugliness. “You’re not to blame for their actions Frances,” Dolores states, a lonely kind of hollowness to her voice, like there was nothing left of the pretty lilting notes that usually smile from her. Just sounds, words spoken emptily, despite their truth. “Only they chose to do the things they did.”

Your best efforts at restraining your emotions are not good enough, and you cry, outwardly, for her and for yourself and for everything _you wanted to be_ for her. Be the heroine, be her knight in shining armour. What were you imagining here? Like you could rescue the girl and ride off into the sunset? “But its my job to look after you,” You say emphatically. She pushes up slowly on her hands, hearing your voice so bent with burden she pushes aside her own pains for yours. “I want to be the one to … look after you,” You complain about yourself, your weaknesses, your hands flailing on the bed. Westworld had bested you. You wanted her and wanted more than she could give. “ _For always,_ ” You say resolutely, no matter what happens from this point, you know you're in love and you cant do a damn thing about it anymore.

“How do you mean?” Dolores tilts her head. The way the moonlight caresses her cheeks through the window of your bedroom illuminates her skin to something ethereal, a goddess among mortals. The endless loops of repetition, the worst of mankind shown to her night after hellish night and yet she remained capable of appreciating beauty, art, and longed for a life far from here in a dream like whimsical fancy. You don't ever remember being like that, even as a child.

You cup her cheek, and she rests her head against your touch, nuzzling into it. “How can I be worthy of someone like you…?” You mutter, shaking your head, your own thoughts taking you deep, far from here and breaking in to the reality of what you wanted. What did you even have to offer her? A one-bed apartment in a half decent neighbourhood, working all hours in the labs never seeing her. What life could you even give her? Would she be happy there, like she was here?

Her lips kiss the side of your thumb, your hand still stroking at her cheek but stilled caught in thought. “Sweetheart?” Dolores prompts you, drawing you back. “Where did you go just now?”

The tenderness to the way she says ‘Sweetheart’ to you again makes your stomach twist. You’re not - _You’re not her sweetheart you don't deserve her you cant look after her its a fools errand to trust the words she says_. “Don’t.” You say brusquely, your hand dropping away and sniffing a deep breath in. “May you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber.”

“I - “ Dolores begins, then falls limp in your lap.

You close your eyes with a heavy sigh, and slip out from under her body.

You shove the heavy chest of drawers with your hips, not bothering to put the screw back in anymore. You were needing the kit too often to make it worthwhile. Clicking the sides of the tablet open, you have to wait a while for it to boot up. The battery was depleting and you hadn’t solar charged it all week, so it takes a little longer than it should.

Rubbing the knuckles of your fist across your watering eyes, you remotely connect your device to her pearl, the futuristic little ball of knowledge just like your brain. All the interconnecting codes and patterns are there, even if hidden from her, they’re in there. The droplets of your tears splattering on the screen make the plastic not respond to your finger gestures. You rub your sleeve over it, and carry on with a sniff. Highlighting the text you need to, archive it, put it away, store away your _failings_ and her suffering.

Its too easy; you’re too well practiced at it. You toss the tablet carelessly into the pit below the floorboards and hug your knees for a few minutes, then pull yourself together. Crawling up on to the bed, you give yourself a shake, and ready yourself to start again.

“Bring yourself back online Dolores,” You command, and like an obedient pet she slowly sits up, looking around her with subtle confusion. She seems to lighten as she sees you, her eyes brightening into a smile. “Do you remember me?”

Dolores looks amused at your question. “Of course I do, why wouldn't I?” Her lilting accent touches at your heart and you sigh, nodding to yourself. _All done._

“No reason,” You fall short of any reasoned answer. She was reset, she didn't remember and everything was as it was. It was only _you_ that wasn’t coping, and tomorrow would likely be the same shit all over again. “I better get to bed.” The heels of your boots scuff as you wander toward the door, turning the cold porcelain handle in your palm.

“Where are you going?” Dolores chuckles, sitting herself fully upright and leaning on her hands either side of her thighs. The pose reminds you of the other night, of a night you dreamed of her sentience for the first time. With her in the crook of your arm and tucked into your bed, you had stupidly wondered if this really was capable of, being real. _Her, you, your feelings?_

You rub your hand through your dirt ridden hair, purging yourself of such idle fantasy. “Like I said, its late and - “

 _“But were already in your bedroom.”_ Dolores grins, a little too coyly. Lifting your hands to your hips, you look about you, and realise she's right. Every night you had done this, brought her upstairs reset her code and let her change into a nightdress, then retreated to your own room.

But tonight you had placed her on _your_ bed, not her own. Without even realising it, your core drive to keep her safe had overridden the pattern. Keep her close, in your bedroom, with you. Like it was perfectly normal.

“You’re not going to sleep in that are you?” Dolores quirks her head, already unbuttoning her own dress. Your eyes move away, wanting to give her a little dignity, but they widen in gentle panic as you see the chest of drawers are still skidded to one side where you had shoved them out of the way. The floorboard panel open. Your laptop and modern kit, right there.

With any luck she wouldn’t notice. Even if she did, she was programmed not to be able to see it. Right? You take a deep breath, and ignore the jolting pieces of your other reality, and kick off your boots. “No, you’re right,” You murmur, and manage at least a small uptick of the sides of your mouth, playing along to her cheerfulness. It was a sweet antidote to your spiralling feelings. “Sorry if I seem …,” You don't know what to say, but you can feel her eyes on you asking questions. You practically rip your shirt off with a consigned sigh, then pick at the laces of your corset, very quickly becoming irritated by the knot you had done there this morning. You growl angrily at it, and the stupidity of wearing a corset, of falling in love with a woman you cant have and this whole goddamn mess.

Already out of her dress before you’d even noticed, she appears in front of you, resting her hands atop yours stilling them. Dolores tilts her head, gazing you sympathetically, as you sniff at the intrusion but ultimately give way to her firm touch. “You’ve been crying,” Dolores murmurs as she fiddles the knot of your corset laces, undoing with deft fingers.

You nod, bitterly so. “Yes.” _How could you possibly explain why?_

Freeing you of the corset, she puts it on your chest of drawers and searches it for a fresh nightdress. You want to laugh at the mirroring of it all, her helping _you_ now, caring for you just the same as you do for her.

Her programming at least gives you the illusion of it.

“Have you been having bad dreams, too?” Dolores asks quietly, handing you the nightdress, but not moving away. She drops her eyes, hands fiddling anxiously at her waist. “I feel like I’m going mad with it, these questions …,” Her head shakes thoughtfully, its all too much. Contemplating these things are beyond her cognition, you can imagine it does kind of blow her mind. “Sometimes all I wanna do is cry.” She twists your shirt in her fingers pulling herself closer, her hips bobbing against your own. “So I understand, is all.”

Your arms instinctively come around her shoulders, and she melts against you. “You’re still dreaming.” You whisper into her hair, though it sounds more like a statement than a question. As much as you should be concerned about it, that maybe you hadn’t done a thorough enough clean of her code, hearing her talk like this again - it returns your flicker of hope.

Dolores knew things, _outside_ of her coding, as if it was stored somewhere else that couldn't be so easily altered. It was as if she was forming her own memories, like flowers beginning to unfurl somewhere inside her mind kept safe from Delos itself.

“I told you it happens every night,” She talks against your chest, picking at a loose thread of your shift. “Don’t you remember?”

The irony isn't lost on you. “Yeah I remember. I’m just, not sure what _you_ will and… wont remember…” You know you’re not making sense now.

“You say the strangest things sometimes,” Dolores huffs and gives you a quizzical look. “I always remember _you._ ” Tugging you by your shirt you pulls you back to the bed, sitting down and wanting you to do the same. “Even when nothing else makes sense. You’re always watching over me … even in my dreams.” It sounds so wistful and romantic, but the cold clinical reality of it was she was describing - remembering being reset, was something far different.

You settle beside her, bringing one leg up onto the bed. Theres, things you need to ask. Now, while she's seemingly … off her programming. “Do you … _like_ me being here?” You postulate. Its a hard question to ask, to have the affirmation of your presence come from her, not from the coding that Bernard wrote. Your backstory isn't everything now. She's forming her own private memories and you’re featuring in them. She's not like the others, and you’re certain its not just your feelings swaying your desire for this to be true. But she's never got to decide who is in her life before, who she spends her days with _or falls in love with,_ and for you own good you need to hear it from her. That you haven’t simply been shoved into her life for 2 months, though she feels far longer, against her will like everything else. “If I’m in your … bad dreams, maybe its better I’m not here. That you don't remember me, or, start to remember other things.”

Asking a living, breathing being if she truly wants the consciousness she's developing, you know, is an impossible question to ask. But unlike so many other things in her life, you feel its your duty to give her that choice.

A terrified breath fills her lungs as she gasps the words. “You want to leave?” Her eyes search wildly through yours. “Like Teddy?” Dolores stands away from you with a frown, hugging her arms around herself anxiously.

You hurry the step or two after her, cup her cheeks andpull her to you urgently, hating the sight you’ve created. “No!” You passionately correct her. “No thats not what I mean…,” It was like trying to discuss quantum physics or some such with a child. How could she possibly understand what you were trying to say? “But, its hard, being here and not being able to -“ To say you’ve fallen for her, and yet every night you reset her memory, making you complicit in the deception of her world, so nameless Newcomers can come and do what they like to her, uninhibited, _without limits_. “Theres things I want to do.” Your whole body sighs, but the faint touch of her fingers under your chin bring your gaze back up, bringing with it such light you feel a stronger kinship with her than you have with anyone, ever. Real or not, Host or Human, did it matter?

Besides the way she was brought into the world, what her made her different, anyway? Sure, you were born, she was built. But there was children born from assisted reproductive technologies, IVF and the like that once had them hailed test-tube babies. Were _they_ any different for how they were conceived? Were humans of lower or higher IQ deserving of less or more rights, because of their mental capacity? Of course not. So why should this omnipotent creator Robert Ford get to decide that this wonderful, beautiful woman in front of you was any _less_ , than you were?

Dolores’ hand settles in her lap again, seeming to let her attention drift. “Its not easy, being a person. To keep getting out of bed every morning, when you know theres no point to it all. Sometimes I wonder what I’m really doing here.” Her porcelain skin has gentle creases from thought, as if all the inconsistencies were starting to twine themselves together like knotweed occupying their own space in her mind. Perhaps this is part of her becoming her own person, the starting to understand stress and worry, and desire for things not just far off in a physical sense, but that enigmatic search for _purpose_ every human goes through at some point in their lives. “Theres things I want to do too -“

“What do you mean Dolores?” The coder in you is nervous about her suggestions. You want some reassurance that she's not _so_ aware of the repetitions of her life that any further Bandit action wont be erasable. She’d recall the Bandits from the hills, any shoot out that happens and if so - you wouldn't be able to fix up Peter Abernathy and put him back on loop either. If she remembers him getting shot, he cant walk down stairs the next morning like nothings happened.

The implications of her burgeoning consciousness start to free-fall.

“Like this,” Dolores murmurs, turning her head back to you and kissing you hard, all of a sudden flipping your philosophical worries on their head. You blink, then relax into it and smile into her kiss, blushing like a teenager as she eases back, running her gaze over your eyes, cheeks, lips, neck like she's never seen them before. Discovering something in you, and perhaps, herself. “I think you’re very beautiful.”

“What?” You cant help but chuckle, your grin bouncing off the walls, your worry slipping away in an instant. _She fancies you?_ You were debating the higher and lower merits of her existence, while all she cares about is discovering _who she is,_ under all that code.

“I’ve never really… seen another woman up close.” You glance down, following her journeying touch drift down from your cheek to the length of your neck. Dolores tilts her head, the pads of her fingers depressing slightly on your pulse point, the living throb of blood in your veins bounding beneath her fingers, and a heartbeat that quickened the longer she touched you. Her opposite hand touched her own neck, a puzzled expression on her features, then seemed to shake the thought away. 

Dolores’ touch meandered out to the rounded curve to your shoulder, curiously tracing the undulating lines of your body back to your collar bone then down to your chest, hindered by the hem of your nightdress. You smirk a little, catching her eye. Its not so much _desire_ in her eyes; nor the sexy lust-filled imaginings you’ve had, but intrigue. A preoccupied kind of attraction really seeing something with fresh eyes. Her own.

You unbutton the front of the nightdress, slip the side off your shoulder, then the other, and she reaches with both hands pulling the sides down until its pooled at your waist, your top half revealed to her. Dolores leans back looking at you, then smiles appreciatively. “Its okay,” You reassure her, and her fingers resume their exploring, every so often flicking her eyes to yours. Dolores drags her nails along your ribs, the smooth muscle between them, under your breast and then pauses, hand hovering unsure.

“I’m the same like you,” You say quietly. “See?”

You long to understand the undulating mountains of thought she's trying to scale. Dolores undoes her own nightdress, and stepping one foot off the bed, stands just enough to let her own nightwear shimmy down her hips and to the floor. She takes your breath away. For all the times you've seen her naked body, in the labs during diagnostics, even as you heal up various bullet wounds and bruises, this is what she truly looked like. Her hands fold and twitch nervously at her belly, watching your reaction as much as you’re watching her. “Are you?” She reaches for your hand, taking it by the wrist and puts it on her chest, over the left side where her heart would be, and mirrors the same on your chest. “I think maybe, theres something wrong with me. Or you.”

Taking control of the hand hold, you throw caution to the wind and pull her down to you, kissing her hard. She yelps playfully into the kiss as you encourage her over you, but its clumsy and she knocks you over with a giggle. Despite the tangle of limbs she urges her lips to yours, her hands roaming your bare chest with carefree abandon; you kiss her back hard, letting all your pent up worry and affection and fear spill out of you. You need to feel _like you_ that she's alive, she's safe and she’s in your arms because she _wants_ to be.

After a few seconds of uncertainty, she moans into your mouth, as though it took some time for her to register the embers of flickering heat between her legs, in her belly, and what they mean. Dolores shifts her knees astride your hips and sitting naked atop you she encourages you up, kissing you back, her explorative roaming touch now excited inexperienced pawing, causing you to laugh a little. “Easy,” You soothe, holding her hips steady. Smoothing your hands up and down her thighs, you bite your lip, just gazing at her. God she was gorgeous.

“I’m sorry, if I shouldn’t have - “ Dolores tucks her hair behind her ear, blushing heavily.

You encourage her down beside you, and she eases herself off your hips to lie on her side, curled over while keeping her arm draped over the dip of your waist. “Come here,” You murmur, and she shifts to lie against you, snuggling into your arms, both of you naked and panting softly. “Plenty of time for all that …,” You press a kiss on her hair, and she shifts her head up just enough she can kiss you too, then tucks herself in again against your chest. Closing your eyes, you smile to yourself, enjoying the feel of her in your arms, safe after all. Her fingers idly stroking your chest, you try and concentrate on the now, not tomorrow, not what happened today, just now.

—————

Theres a loud rap on the door and it lurches you awake, dragging a deep fresh lung full of air as Peter Abernathys voice calls you through the door. He doesn’t give you a second to wake and realise you were late for work, his daughter in your arms, naked as a newborn. “C’mon what you playing at Matheson the suns up but you’re not - “ The door opens and he strides in, blinking at the revelation he found.

“We’ll be right out, no need to come barging in daddy,” Dolores cooes, holding the covers up to her chest with one arm, balancing herself upright on the other from beside you. She tilts her head and gives him an admonishing look.

The man goes beetroot red, and stutters his reply. “Oh, Dolores I didn't know you two were, _ahem._ ”

She glances at you, a mischievous smirk on her lips that had you throbbing in heat that wasn’t the morning sun. “Couldn’t sleep.” She lies, flicking her hair over one bare shoulder. “I’ll be down momentarily.” You shimmy close to her, not for warmth - her skin remained fairly cool despite the life-like feel to it. But she had claimed most of the covers and you didn't really want to flash your Host-boss or inadvertently the tech’s back in the Mesa Control Room. You’re pretty sure no-one would know, her loop starts on coming down the stairs each morning, but _still_.

Peter seems to get back on track. “Gonna head to town take in some of that, natural splendour?” His hands rest on his hips, as though lacking their usual mug of something on the patio during this interaction.

Dolores smiles wistfully, and glances out the large sash window appreciating it even from in here. “Thought I might,” She lilts.

He accepts the scripted answer with a nod, gesturing to the window with an invisible tankard in hand. “Be sure to be home before dark, theres bandits in these hills and -“

Dolores laughs lightly and flings her hand at him, bidding him away. “I know daddy. Go on now.” The older man retreats from the room, unable to come up with anymore of a response, except a shuffled step away and closing the door on the two of you.

“You say that a lot.” You point out, and she turns her attention back down to you. Yes, its her narrative. But you're interested if pointing these things out could nudge her more towards the light of consciousness on her own.

“Hmm?” Dolores lets her arm give way and in a slow, borderline seductive fashion lies herself back down, on her front this time, chin rested in her hands smiling at you. You’ve never seen her like this, so content and relaxed. Like the world could wait a while before needing to step out into it.

“‘ _Thought I might’_ ,” You mimic, with a smirk. You _know_ its her coding, that she's lived this conversation an inordinate amount of times, but to hear her say it again, even now while the loop has already altered, sounds like its not really her voice at all. Which is a ridiculous thing to think when its all her, all the same script but built altered and adapted for each situation. 

Dolores does a small shrug. “Habit.” She mutters, and her response perks your interest. Habit? Did she feel like it was something she _chose_ to say? Was she, _no,_ she couldn't be aware how many times she had had that conversation. Memory recovery was impossible, you had archived it. Dolores lets her head fall to one side, features in a thoughtful pondering frown. “Sometimes its just easier to go with the same thing than try and, get my own words out.”

If she was beginning to remember her fathers conversation, how long would it be until she remembered other things? Like the horrors that had been done to her, time and time again? Would that render the delicately developing consciousness to rip irrevocably apart, too much trauma for one mind to take?

You trace unknown patterns in the palm of her hand, reflecting on her description of it all. “Your own words?”

“Sometimes I feel like, I can hear myself saying things, and though its my voice, they're coming _from me_ , its not really me.” Dolores bunches her lips, shaking her head with a sigh. “I’m not making much sense am I…,” She flops down on the pillow with a groan, rolling onto her back and staring at the blank ceiling as though she could divine the answers she needed from it.

“Its okay, go on.” You rest up on one elbow, encouraging her to traverse this unknown terrain. “You can say whatever you want to me Dolores. I’m not gonna judge you.”

She puffs frustratedly, “Its as though I’m siting in the background and they’re someone else's words, just coming out of me. Then other times, I can get my own words to come through. Like when I’m with you.”

You're sure Bernard and Ford would be delighted to hear it was _you_ that had accidentally awoken the longest running most reliable Host in the park, you huff inwardly.

Sitting yourself up you grab your shirt from where you’d lost it, yanking it on and passing her her nightdress off the floor. “Don’t, don’t go to town. Come out with me, the other Ranchers wont mind me knocking off for the day.” You say impulsively, taking her hands and squeezing them hard.

Dolores blushed, that innocence still in her that only dared her to believe of adventures and places far away. She chewed the side of her lip as she looked at you pensively. “You want to spend the day with me?”

You bring both her hands to your lips and kiss her knuckles. “More than anything.”

A girlish grin breaks across her lips, her cheeks dimpling as she smiles so broad it fills your heart with possibility. “Sounds to me a little like you wanna go a courting,” Dolores says with the lilt of an old soul to her, knowing a little of what you mean _while not quite knowing at all_.

You lean forwards, tucking your hand into the nape of her neck as you kiss her ear and whisper, “I think we already started that last night.”

Dolores’ features light naughtily, capturing you in her hands to kiss you too, this secret feverish feeling quite delightful and somewhat addictive. “I’m not sure what my daddy would say.”

You laugh, of course. You remember the line she used to say, and will probably repeat again at some point ‘ _Yes Daddy I know all about when you were a law man, so does every boy that ever came a-courting’._ Lucky for you Peter Abernathy likely cant give you the same hiding, warning you to treat his daughter right lest he load up his shotgun for not getting her home by dark. “Good thing I don't have to ask his permission then.”

—————

You invited Dolores to show you her world. She knew these mountains and tracks for miles around the Ranch better than any man, and she laughed gaily at you when you didn't know which track led where. You’d worked this land for years she still believed, but you had convinced her of course, that you hadn’t wandered far from the ranch itself, the steer keeping you busy, so not to have explored in the way she has.

It wasn’t getting any easier, the little lies and deceptions you had to keep up with. For her apparent awareness fluctuated through the day, like a tiny bird stretching its wings, perching on the edge of its nest and looking down but finding itself not quite ready to fly, and sitting back in the safety of its twig-home. Telling Dolores you’ve only been in her life 2 and a half months would undermine the trust you had together, or she simply wouldn't understand, depending how awake she was.

But as her life consisted of only so much time in the day, before heading home and catching the herd wandering loose - she was able to show you her world and all her favourite places in just a few hours. The magnificence of the landscape was breathtaking, of course. Around every turn was a view you bet even a king himself couldn't pay for. Part of you longed to show Dolores _your_ world, the equivalent of being invited to someone house the first time; in the early days of dating it was a sign they were letting you in, exposing their private space and selves to the other. But with Dolores you cant do that, however many rotations you take this will always be her world, and not yours.

You’d lain by the river where she likes to paint, flattened the long grass to lie back and watch the clouds pass, making shapes of the puffy white blobs laughing at each others imaginings. Dolores had rolled over, plucked a long stemmed flower and slid it daintily in your hair, then leant to kiss your cheek and you’d swear her smile was true, for yours was.

Seeing everything in the park through her eyes gave you a different perspective. For there _was_ a wonder in Fords creation, despite how his megalomaniac personality was reflected in some Hosts and narratives themselves. You start to understand he was nothing but a Dr Frankenstein who created life yet refused the responsibility of it. As if against his very will, Westworld wasn’t _just_ what he programmed it to be anymore. Dolores was evidence of that, as was everything beautiful about this place. It existed not because of him, but in spite of him.

Riding home, you don't want the day to end. Like the giddy excitement of young love, _first_ love, if you were speak for Dolores, it was easy to float along in your bubble together and not think about the rest of the world that carried on around you. For the evening would be drawing in soon, Peter Abernathy would be on the porch with his gaslight and like most nights- though not all, Bandits might be coming by for no-good looting and other antics. But considering she hadn’t been in Sweetwater all day, hadn’t dropped her can or been noticed by any Newcomers, perhaps tonight you’d be spared the fear and fight. Teddy hadn’t come looking for her neither, so he was likely off onthe trail of some bounty, propelled into the wilder side of his narrative by a Newcomer looking for more than the bland offerings of Sweetwater. 

Dolores yanks on her mares reins, pulling her eager lope to a slow skittish walk, the horse napping to get home just like a real horse would. “Father wouldn’t let them roam this close …” You hear her say, just as you pull up beside her, both you and the gelding catching your breath from the long uninterrupted lope. Dolores stared into space, the lines of numbers and code rippling through her mind like flashes, splashing half-broken scenes of playing this same scene but with Teddy. The night darker, the herd roaming with agitation, shots being heard up at the house. Dolores gasped and blinked, her hand fluttering anxiously at her chest.

“Dolores?” You prompt her, keen for such scripted lines to be kept at bay a little longer. There were no cattle on the driveway, but she had followed the pattern anyway, and caught herself doing it, it seemed. It was only a few seconds, but long enough you noticed the shift from her animated smile to expressionless staring, and back again.

“It happened again,” Dolores muttered, almost to herself, as though wanting to log this fact somewhere in an inventory of confusing things. She took a breath and brightened, smiling at you then. “I’m sorry, I’m forgetful sometimes, was I saying something?”

You deflate a little, sensing her conscious mind retreating from play. She was still sweet, and pretty of course, but it wasn’t quite the same when she looked at you, because you knew she wasn’t really seeing _you._ “No, I was saying we should get these horses in, they’ve had a long day,” You lie, it didn't matter now. Even as her programming switched it didn't take anything away from the living breathing experiences you’d had all day, the Dolores that rolled over kissing you in a cloud of pollen and grass, nothing in your vision but her captivating smile and the blue sky above.

“As have we,” She grins, and you stare back.

“Dolores,” You breathe, relieved beyond words. It had only been momentary, but seeing the empty glass eyed stare from her had crashed the giddy romantic high you’d been riding. You didn't want to think about _what_ she was, or that she was made, or that you were only there in her life at all to service and maintain a high functioning operating system.

The programmers back at the Mesa didn't know what the fuck they were playing with, this park, this world was so much more its own living breathing being than just wires and code. They just couldn't see it.

She peers at you quizzically wondering why you’re acting strange, but decides against saying anything. “Do you think father will let you ride out with me tomorrow? Its not calving season they can spare you and I’d really love to paint you, perhaps by the river?” Dolores attempts cautiously to ask you out, your horses ambling up the path together in contentment. You watch her cheeks blush tentatively, the way she sneaks side glances at you and you remember the feeling yourself, what it must be like for her, doing this for the very first time. Not trusting you own feelings, fearing rejection, coming on too strong.

“You want to paint me?” You smirk, wondering if she means with or _without_ clothes.

Dolores rests her hands on the pommel of the saddle, not needing to really needing to hold the reins aloft, the horses knowing their way home. “I, hoped you’d find my offer flattering …,” She blushed.“But if its not then - “

You lurch out the saddle grabbing at the reins of her mare pulling the horse toward you earning you a whinnying grunt from the thing, but you don't care, you want to kiss her. “Come here,” You growl playfully, standing right up in the stirrups to lean out, catch her waist and kiss her, totally inelegant and unbalanced but you want to kiss her goddammit.

Dolores practically catches as you throw yourself towards her. “Careful cowboy,” She laughs, helping rebalance you back upright. “You don’want my daddy catching us up to no good when I should be helping get the stew on for dinner,” She nods up towards the house and the domestic life she should be living.

“After you then,” You gesture all chivalrous.

“You say that like I need the headstart,” Dolores grins, gathering up the mares reins and getting ready to bolt. The excitement of the chase lights in her eyes. “Think you can keep up?” She slaps the horse with the ends of her reins and digs her heels in, bursting forward to a full gallop and you laugh, doing the same and going after her.

She had won, of course, and offering to take her mare to the barn you lead both horses away now familiar with the horses routine, untacking them filling their water trough and giving them a quick brush down.

As you tended to the horses, Dolores gathered her skirts and climbed the steps to her house. She looked up and down the porch. “Daddy?” Where was he? His usual chair rested empty, the gas light switched off that was there to light her way home should it get dark.

The front door creaked open, and a tall, older man stepped outside clad all in black. “Hello Dolores, was starting to wonder where you’d gotten to.” Under a dirtied black hat, his features were chiselled and roguish, a patterned black neckerchief hid his throat and therefore his age, over various shades of intense black to his shirt waistcoat and jacket, ending in worn black leather boots.

“Oh, hello,” Dolores tucked her hands neatly at her waist, a faint nervous smile on her features trying to be polite.

William huffs at her, its a change in tack of his, to enjoy these few minutes of pleasant exchange rather than ride in with violence at the forefront of his mind. “You don't remember me at all, do you Dolores.” He huffed wondering what he was really expecting. The hope remained in him after all these years, every time, _that maybe this time it would be different._ “After all that we’ve shared.” But her blank stare summoned nothing to her eyes that he recognised. The light wasn’t there, and his need to extinguish his own desires were simmering barely controlled beneath the surface. He didn't want to feel what he did, didn't want to pine for a _thing,_ that could never know him. But here she was, with pale watery blue eyes and a smile that endeared her to whomever saw her, and he was pulled right in again.

He hated her for it.

William balls his fists at his sides, the squeeze of the leather in his palm making his adrenaline start to fire. He wanted her blood to smear the black leather of his gloves, stain them with her pain as she had been a stain on his life he could never wash off.

Dolores tilted her head gently. “Are we, very old friends?”


	6. Chapter 6

William’s mouth huffs into wry curve, releasing his fists from their tight, tense grip. “Depends on your definition of friend.” Spreading his arms, William draws back the sides of his jacket to rest his hands on his waist, watching her eyes sift through the tells he was giving her, until they rested on the heavy black and silver revolver attached to his belt. Dolores felt a pinch of worry. “Aren’t you gonna come inside, your mothers made a wonderful pot roast,” William lies persuasively, unable to deny how the sight of her made him feel. Even now, just standing there gazing at him with such a sweet innocence about her. The fact it greeted him every time was wonderfully restorative. Like he was born anew when she laid eyes on him, except the damn woman had no idea who he was, so the spark of excitement that fluttered in his belly quickly died, burnt to ash and choked his good intentions.

“Pot Roast?” Dolores queried in soft bemusement. She glanced behind her to the barn, vaguely remembering telling you it was meant to be stew, but perhaps her mother simply changed her mind through the day. You had been out riding since the morning after all. “I didn't know we were expecting guests.” William cupped his hand in the small of her back as he guided Dolores with him through the door, almost a programmed _human_ behaviour, to be chivalrous to the lady.

Through the threshold lay no warm welcome or freshly cooked dinner. Nevertheless William enjoyed the few seconds of closeness of his body with hers, the faint feminine scent that drifted off her, before she saw what he’d done. For these brief moments as her hip brushed his, she didn’t yet know what monstrosities he’d committed, and he felt his younger self tingle with a turbulent desire that had let him to cheat on his fiancee, for this, _thing._

His eyes shut, the sensory link to his memories stronger than sight alone. His teeth ground as his mind played it over again, the torture of remembering Dolores in his arms, her soft tearing eyes as he had tried to be a good man, tell her _I have someone at home waiting for me_ … she had felt her heart splitting and he couldn't bear it, he’d wanted her more than Juliet at that moment, and every moment thereafter. Dolores had haunted him, this indiscretion made more powerful each time he closed his eyes and pretended his hand was hers, that she was pressing to his thigh and breathing hotly on his cheek as she fed his release with _her_ hand. Oh, how he revelled in those precious moments where she belonged to him again.

Her scream snapped him back to the present, and the built reality of a world that he begrudgingly preferred to the outside. It was visceral, life here. Death and blood and hot igniting passions, as though Ford had simply taken all of human experience and dialled it up to it to its most intense. William smiled at his gory creation, made all the more pure by her viewing of it.

Dolores’ voice cracked and shook, her hands trembling as her feet stumbled over to the dining table, her mother one side, her beloved father on the other. “Daddy….?” She whined, tears splitting from her reddening eyes as she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing.

Their wrists and feet were bound to their chairs, their heads lolled to the side, hanging in an unnatural lifeless way, huge holes bored through the sides of their heads, blood and tissue - as realistic as it was, splattered messily over the dining table. Touching her palms finally to her fathers shoulders, she found him cold and unresponsive, and her hands snapped away again - as if the clots of blood hanging and oozing through his fork onto the tablecloth were not enough of an indicator as to his condition. She howled your name at the top of her lungs. “Frances!”

You were still brushing down your dark bay gelding of the days dirt, clouds of loose hair falling from its coat when you heard her. _Dolores._ Your heart stops. You drop the brush right there in the straw abandoning it and bolting from the stable out to the house barely able to keep up with your own feet, not even thinking about pulling your gun because your mind wasn’t working wasn’t thinking, your only reflex was _somethings happened shit somethings happening again!_

William formed a heavy frown under the brim of his hat. “Frances? Who the fucks Frances?” He grumbled in bewilderment. He had to admit he was enjoying _watching_ the horror unfold in her, rather than be the one she's directing it at, at least not yet. Dolores hadn’t put two and two together, a quirk of her cognition, he mused. That a sequence of events could not be deduced on her own, only seeing the devastation laid before her.

You leap up the porch steps and bluster inside. “Dolores?!” You search the scene frantically. Was she hurt? Were the Bandits back? It was the wrong time of day it made no sense - then you see the second figure taking up only the shadows of the room. “Who the hell are you?” You demand, about to make a grab for your gun when Dolores turns tearfully from her fathers corpse to fling herself at you in a strained sob. Her body collides with yours and all you can do is wrap her up in your arms, holding her safely while staring with tight-jawed suspicion at the stranger, and the crowbar that lay on the table covered in Host flesh and white fibre.

It took some brute intent to screw a crowbar through someones head, and made a hell of a lot more damage than your hot iron could fix up.

“Might ask you the same thing,” William chewed, drawing his gun idly checking the barrel for how many bullets were in the chamber, flicking his gaze up to you every few beats. “Here I was expecting Teddy to take a stand, like he always does. But, shooting him down does get kinda boring, so I’m not opposed to this change of tack.” He clicks the barrel back into place, finally taking a good look at you, smacking his lips together as if deciding how best to dispose of you, too.

Its then he notices the way your hands fit in the curve of her waist, how at ease she is, with what looks to William like some kind of _tender_ embrace. He picked his teeth with a fingernail, and spit out what he’d found with an irritating grumble. Were they really replacing Teddy, in _every_ way Dolores thought of him? The one she knows, will always remember while fresh faced Newcomers slip in and out of her mind like someone stepping in and out a stream for just a moment. Just like each Newcomer didn't step in quite the same river, only the rock remained steadfast - which right now seemed to be you. The insinuation of such a sapphic twist to Dolores narrative irks William more than he dared admit.

Dolores breaks away with angry tears, one hand bunched in her skirts so she could march right up to him not displaying a shred of fear. “Teddy is a good man, just like my father was before you slaughtered him!” She railed at him, her finger jabbing in the air threateningly. William seems taken aback, about ready to wrestle her away but in that instant Dolores loses all motion, freezing in such a mechanical way it chills you. It reminds you what she is, and you don't like it.

“…Dolores?” You mutter. You’ve come to recognise these jarring motions and blank stares, the way she trails off, stops mid sentence, sensing something from far away, a trigger unknown to you taking her elsewhere for a second.

But now was _not_ the time.

She tilts her head, her mussed blond hair draping to one side as she peers at William. He feels his chest tightening, the anger in his psyche easing back from the eruption that was broiling beneath the hard tectonic plates he’d built to his exterior. Was she, seeing him? _Really_ , seeing him?

Dolores only blinks, eyelids repetitively fluttering while her features twitch as she sees him in her mind, backhanding her to the ground and bracing his feet wide over her hips as he undid his belt. The scene shifts and he's dragging her by her hair across the yard, it shifts again and they're riding out to the creek in the sunshine, before he throws her against the trunk of an old tree and rapes her.

Jerking back a step, Dolores struggles to keep up as memory after memory rush into her mind like waves crashing against a rock battering her mind, all the information brightening like the opening of an upload, the volume of his previous visits suddenly available to her.

“I’ll kill you for this!” Dolores bursts, and you scramble to hold her back but the firm ribbing of her corset offers you little purchase.

“Shit Dolores don’t!” You yelp at her. She’s away from you, led only by the crashes of her uncontrollable emotion; you don't know what Dolores has seen or who this man is but she's way off loop and if she does something that raises suspicion - Whoever this guy was he’s clearly not on his first visit and Dolores is _changed,_ shifting between her coding and consciousness, remembering him even, and you’re not sure what the hell rules apply or don’t.

What if she _did_ actually stab him? Act out her revenge and injure or even kill a Guest? You’d been allowing and supporting her personal growth, but given the context of her loop was it a wise thing to let happen?

Dolores had her fists balled tight but despite the blistering rage that she seemed to aim them with, the blows fell short of connecting, her arms frozen up in mid-air unable to land a single punch.She stared in horror at her own hands as though they didn’t belong to her, trying with all her might to break through the invisible wall that seemed to surround this intruder, shield him from suffering any damage at all.

Her coding was still fighting her, she _wanted_ to do things, but those lines of numbers were holding her back. A sharp breath escapes your chest, unsure if in this moment you’re relieved its still there, or not. Dolores had been made to suffer so much, didn't she deserve the autonomy to deal with it? Sort through her trunkful of emotions and, if she felt it right, fight back?

But if she ever got a hold of his knife and killed him she would be sent right down into livestock cold storage and you’d never see her again. Her conscious mind probably still alive in there screaming from behind the immovable eyes and body she's trapped inside, the cold darkness of those warehouse rooms a forever hell. That you know for damn sure.

She gasped and growled in exasperation, as William features broadened and cracked into a grin, then laughed at her. “Dolores I’m surprised at you, I’ve never known you hold such anger,” He playfully scolded, simply taking ahold of her wrists and yanking her round till his arms were criss crossed over her body tying her up with them like she was in a straight jacket, her back held tight to his chest. You watch him lean his head around her shoulder to chuckle at the feeble attempts at fighting him off, and realise you’re fucking failing her again. Already lost in your own fears about her consciousness, he's gotten hold of her and she cant do a damn thing. She’s just tried.

You get it now, its up to you to step up.

“A lots changed.” Dolores wrestled with a defiant wrinkle of her nose, ultimately still powerless to take control of her narrative - or him as she would want. William presses his face into her hair taking a long deep inhale of her, his chest purring a deep carnal growl of lust. Dolores features twist in disgust, and you know its time to pull your gun on this prick, and think about everything else later.

But William is more practised, swift and natural in his motions. “Maybe some things. Not everything.” His fingers find the handle of his gun and in seconds he's cocked the gun and fired multiple shots right at you, out of nowhere before you've barely got yours out its holster, each burst of gunpowder in the metal chamber ending with the bullet bluntly hitting your body _one two three four times_ knocking you back with eruptions of throbbing pain at each site.

“Nooo!” Dolores screams, as you strangle a groan, staggering back against the doorframe pressing your hand to your belly where the bullet caught you, the instinct to protect the wound _stop the bleeding_ so automatic, you almost forget its _not real._ You stare at your clean, dry hand no blood at all and you heave a breath. William cocks the gun a final two times emptying the barrel into you, the bullets hitting your chest making you cough and double over as the impact blows you out the doorway onto the porch.

He hauls Dolores with him, dragging her out the door and stepping over your writhing body, his eyebrow twitching slightly seeing that you were somehow still moving even after 6 bullets, but you weren’t getting up and that was good enough for him. William had the surge of adrenaline he craved and his pants were already feeling tight with her in his arms however unwillingly, her hips are rubbing his crotch as she wriggles and he cant help but smile about it.

Its not like it looks from the control room, or when you shot yourself in a slow controlled manner. This was blood and anger and control, it was long powerful bullets that weren’t your everyday joes gun, you can feel the damn difference and though you know in your head you’re not bleeding, you’re not wounded like that it _feels_ like it. Who was he? How did he have tech that good?

Dolores wails through her tears. “You’re a monster! How could you!” The pain of seeing you shot dead in front of her tears her up inside something terrible, a blinding white hot hatred making her vision blur and her jaw lock taking her out of her body for a moment, as if she were standing right there in the yard watching it all play out in front of her.

Dolores holds her hands politely at her waist as she watches William drag her other self across the dirt, her feet scrabbling on the floor trying to stop him, trying to save herself from what she _knew,_ now, was coming. Dolores turns her head slowly, the perfect pale blue of her dress waving softly around her legs in the breeze, as she walks toward you on the patio porch - though you don't seem to see her. You’re groaning, cursing at yourself as you try to trick your brain into remembering you’re not shot, this pain damn hurts but its bruises, get up. _Get up._

“Nice work Ford!” William calls out to the sky, laughing. “The old goats making me work a little harder this time,” He tells Dolores, flinging open the door to the Barn, the wood on wood sound crashing loud into your mind. You know that noise, you know what happens next and you need _to_ _get the fuck up._ “Well I ain’t complaining. I’ll always get what I came for either way. I always do.” William throws a fitting frightened Dolores into the haystack, who holds her hands above her protectively trying to cower from what blows he could land on her.

“Please …” She whimpers, shaking her head desperately. “You don't have to do this _please_!”

The other Dolores watches you grit your teeth and climb to your feet, finding your gun spun off somewhere on the porch. You take a hold of yourself, the fear the pain the caution everything thats holding you back done with now.Always told always _programmed_ into being a good girl, being what Ford stipulated in your contract, none of that matters anymore.

You started off that way, keeping out the narrative keeping out of sight, you’d tried before to get in their way but the Bandits and Guest numbers out-witted you, but this time, this time its one man and you and you can take him. You gotta do whats right and you’re not letting them win again.

The conscious Dolores smiles at your evolution, turns a step and disappears.

“I wouldn't count on it buddy,” You snarl, priming your gun and within seconds you’re behind him holding it to the back of his head.

You hear Dolores gasp a breath and pant, looking about her side to side wondering where she is and how she got there, then remembers what she’d just seen was, _her._ Witnessing herself, right now. And you, coming to stop him, fight back where she could not.

Dolores feels a smile of confidence break out on her lips and pushes herself out of the hay back onto her feet seeing you in control. “Now back up, and let her go,” You demand in a firm, barking voice.

William slowly held his hands aloft, thinking himself foolish for emptying his gun barrel at you before, not saving a bullet for a follow up like this. But you _shouldn't be_ standing, you should be full of holes bleeding out on the floor like the other Hosts in Dolores’ life. “ _Buddy?_ Who the fuck programmed you the undergrad?” William chewed the insult and rolled his eyes, slowly stepping around until he was facing you, his cool pale eyes staring right past your gun into your own. You falter, only for a fraction of a second. You’re holding a gun on a Guest.

But its a fraction too long, just enough of hesitation that he makes a grab for the gun pointing it out and away from him with one hand, sending your shot careering off against a beam, his other hand throwing a tough punch square into your face. Your head knocks back and you feel the blood well up in your nose, for real this time. “Fuck you,” Youbite back wrangling your hand out of the gun before he can twist it and break your fingers, then punching him roughly throwing all your weight behind it. Blood dribbles from your nose over the crown of your lips and your smear it away with your sleeve.

William tosses your gun, and advances toward you. “Well they gave you a bit of spunk didn't they,” He spits blood from his mouth and rubs his jaw feeling where you caught him. “Thats fine by me, we can go old school.” He sheds his coat and tosses it behind him, readying his fists. You keep your feet moving, making him move with you. You vaguely remember a short stint of martial arts classes in high school, the faculty thinking at the time, that some self defence ability would be a good idea for young women to have. Maybe you can teach Dolores a few moves, if you ever get her past the laws of robotics preventing her. You kick out and just miss his belly, William jumping back and side stepping, managing to throw a punch into your gut.

Dolores clings to the doorframe of the barn watching you fight for her honour. Your gun lies forgotten in the dirt a few paces away, and her eyes dart to it, then the two of you brawling too caught up to notice where it lay. “Damn right. Now get your shit and you leave us be!” You bark at him, blood still running messily from your nose. Every night of failure every night of doing nothing was building inside and exploding out of you now, using him as a punching bag for your self hate and loathing and weakness and everything you've not been for her up until this point, _you can be now._

He laughs breathlessly, “Oh no, I don't think so. Dolores and I here - “ He points to the woman you love, as he straightens himself up for another round. “Need to get re-acquainted. Thats the beauty of this place, you can be whoever you wanna be!” He holds his arms wide as if talking to the sky, the omnipotent presence of this worlds creator haunting him. “Except you o’course. You gotta do what you're programmed to do, thats just the natural order of this place.” William slung his hands on his hips, planting his feet with a shrug. “So as much fun as this is, I’d rather save my strength for the fun part.” The knowing wink he gives you is _it,_ its too much. Its the tiniest muscle flex and yet embowed such weighted meaning, of what he wanted with her, what they all fucking want, and your fists ball your feet dig into the ground and you _break._

Dolores walks slowly to the gun, crouching and picking it up, laying it in her palm examining it with curiosity. So much power in such a small thing. It was only simple metal, brushed and burnt. And yet owning one, men were whipped into frenzies, thinking they ruled the world simply because they held one of _these_ in their hands. Dolores pushes to standing, her fingers finding their way around the handle, how strange it was to feel it in her palm, the trigger under her finger.

With a protective growl you throw yourself at him, rushing forwards tucking your head down and tackling him to the ground like a line-backer, your shoulder colliding into his ribs as he hits the ground. “Problem is, no-one programmed me, _buddy,”_ You spit, and William blinks at you shaken by both your reaction and what you’re saying. Nevertheless he kicks up rocking his weight and you, unused to throwing men to the ground were not looking at or even trying to pin him down, so he knocks you off with relative ease, rolling over slamming you to the ground instead. The pair of you roll over and over fighting in the dust, a dirty bloody mess and yet neither of you relent, neither of you care what the hell you look like because t _his place_ means the gloves are off and isn't that the whole point?

Dolores’ hand quivers as she raises the gun, squeezing one eye shut, biting the corner of her lip as she stares down the barrel taking her time, breathing a cool breath from her lips to steady herself. She was unsure if she was really going to do it, or if she even _could_. She’d never held a gun in her life much less fired one and both of you were rather close together …

Finally besting you, William pins you down with a grunt, bringing his knee over your chest his hand wrapped around your neck knowing from here you haven't got a chance of getting up no matter how much you flail and hit his leg. There was no strength to you and no way of knocking him off. He pants and calms himself down, huffing and chuckling a smile. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, finally someone putting up a proper fight at the Abernathy Ranch. Shit was just more meaningful, when he truly _wanted_ the prize. But your retort was still bugging him. “You ain’t meant to notice that kind of stuff,” William drawled, strangely reminded of telling the same to Dolores, once upon a time.

Your fingers scrunch handfuls of dirt for you can do little else, limbs finally giving in. “I wasn’t programmed. I was born this way, this place changed me, sure, but you get the point,” You laugh, shaking your head. Look what had become of you? The park did a number on the Guests, the immersion, the real-ness that had them coming back for more. But you _knew_ the charade, the magic behind the curtain and yet you had succumbed, like all of them. Put on the cowboy hat and acting like the real thing, brawling on the ground with more bruises than you’ve ever had in your life, likely a broken nose and yet, you were _happy._

Your days with Dolores’ growing consciousness, this magnificence of this place. It made you feel _alive,_ riding horses and not simply sitting in an automatic car that drove itself to your destination. Washing the dirt off the potatoes and cutting them up, grown right here in the dirt of Ma Abernathys vegetable garden; not some nameless delivery guy bringing you take-out you had no idea how to make yourself. Lazing by the river with a girl who had stolen your heart, slipped flowers into your hair with a smile and wanted to paint you, who gazed at you with such adoration you wanted to spend your whole life being worthy of her. Not sleeping alone in the staff quarters of the Mesa, binging some soap opera like the people on the screen were your friends.

You didn't want to go back to the girl you were before.

Williams eyes searched yours for answers with flickering concern. “The fuck you talking about…?” When you simply turned your head away, he lifted his weight just to bring it back down and shake you into answering. The pressure on your chest made you cough, your eyes water but through the wetness you see Dolores, unharmed by the Barn. You start to smile, then a second figure walks into frame, shorter, soft white hair and small, bird like eyes.

“Stop … no - “ Your voice raspy, reaching lamely for her from under Williams full body weight crushing you into the ground. Why was Ford here, what was he doing?

Ford’s supple leather shoes press the reddish dirt into submission beneath his sole, taking one hand from his pocket and holding it out to Dolores. “How about you, give that to me. This sort of thing, is better left out of your hands,” He says smoothly, and you watch in horror from afar as Dolores’ body language changes. She straightens, stiffens, all limbs slowly lining up as if resetting herself to a factory set way to stand. Every tilt and quirk to her, every gesture as to how she holds herself melts away and _she's gone._ The winds is moving her hair prettily around her shoulders, a lock of hair whispering across her face in the wind and yet she doesn’t react.

Dolores is staring emptily past you and William as though she cant see either of you anymore. Ford smiles, and Dolores’ arm mechanically moves to the side, not looking what she's doing, placing the gun obediently in his palm and returning her arm to her side.

“Time to rest now, Dolores,” Ford instructs, and Dolores crumples instantly into a heap on the floor, falling onto her side as though fainting. Except this isn't that, its sinister, Ford flicking a switch and extinguishing her life, turning the lights off of the woman you love.

Energy bursts from you again punching William trying to get him off as you scramble to get to her. “Dolores!” You scream, powerless under Williams weight. Against the master programme that Ford was, you were nothing. Your love meant nothing and she was gone with a snap of his fingers.

Frowning at your change in behaviour, William snaps his head to where you’re looking and his jaw falls slack. “Ford?” He says incredulously.

Robert Ford tucks the gun in his hand and strolls across the yard towards you, barely containing his smirk. “Oh don’t mind me, you two finish your little, _altercation._ ” He offers William the gun back, and returns his hands to his pockets, simply watching with what he would deem, scientific curiosity in the matter, two humans battling against one another, for a Host.

Not knowing the fuck was going on, William snatches the gun from Ford and with a deep panting breath, growls down at you one last time. He swings the gun around in his hand knowing its already empty of bullets, instead using the butt of the handle like a knuckle duster.

“No!” You gasp and though your arms snap over your head to protect yourself, he slams it down into your face. Your head jerks back against the ground as he knocks you right out.

Both you and Dolores now unconscious at the hands of one man or the other, you lie across the yard from one another, just as unaware, just as vulnerable.

Not content in the _not knowing,_ William lifts his leg and eases off you, instead kneeling beside you now there was no need to hold you down. Drawing the long knife from the pouch at his belt, he yanks what remains of your decency away, untucking your shirt from your breeches and sliding the knife underneath, sawing through the layers of cotton. After a few inches he grabs the two edges, ripping the material apart in his hands.

Williams eyes widen in alarm, your mortality staring back at him. Sure, you’re slim and pretty enough in an unconventional way, but even with your shirt and corset split apart, his hands roaming your skin in vain for signs of your fakery, he finds nothing. “You’re human …” He breathes in bewilderment, there is no string of bullet holes punctuating your skin, no lead lodged in your flesh blood oozing out the wounds.

Just bruises.

“There aren't many surprises left in this world, not for men like us,” Ford said quietly, nudging the sides of your shirt with the toe of his shoe exposing you a little further, a light tilt to his head as you lie there just as lifeless as his Hosts, uncomplaining and placid to his interest. “But, upping the stakes of the game, now and again, is somewhat refreshing, don't you think?” He smiles, touching his fingers to the brim of his hat as he turns to go, a symbolic gesture more than anything, as he wasn’t in fact wearing his dark rounded hat. He had opted instead to enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face, and the thrill of watching all the players in his little web, performing exactly as they were meant to.


	7. Chapter 7

You wake to the sensation of cold water splashing over your face. You startle awake, blinking and sloshing your hand into the stream pouring in your eyes, wiping the excess water off. Elsie crouched next to you, plastic bottle of water in hand, screwing the lid back on. “You’re in deep shit,” She pronounces, with her typical deadpan expression.

“Elsie! What the - ?” You exclaim, hastily sitting up and getting your bearings, as Elsie pushes to standing surveying the scene around you. You follow where she's looking, and the mass of people inhabiting the Abernathy yard takes you suddenly aback, rocking you from the western frontier life you've been living. Programmers, techs, white and red suited mechanics carry the bodies of Peter and Ma Abernathy, swinging them by their arms and legs as they deposit them in a careless row. “Whats going on- “ You start to remember what had just happened. The fight. The gun - Ford. “Dolores…?” You call vaguely, scrambling over to kneel up and look around properly, a piece of clothing hitting you in the face. You scowl at Elsie, but she points you up and down and you drop your chin looking down yourself, your clothes ripped apart. You’re pretty damn naked from the waist up except for the torn remains of your shirt, mostly just sleeves at this point. The hell is going on? You shrug the remains off yanking the spare shirt on as quickly as you can, hoping no-one is really paying you enough attention to have noticed. “Elsie where’s Dolores!” You snap, getting to your feet and storming after your colleague.

“Huh?” Elsie pulls a face at you, not understanding the urgency in your voice. “Oh she's over there. Chillout.” She gestured, slipping her laptop from her back pocket and unfolding it, wanting to work out the sequence of events to have ended with the most boring ranch homesteaders having their brains bored out with a crowbar.

You spot her on the ground not far from the Barn where she had been switched off, now a blank canvas with nothing written on her face at all. An industrial metallic van parked up alongside the barn, the back open showing what seemed to be other Host bodies lying haphazardly inside. You realise the meat wagon was doing the rounds collecting Hosts for repair, and you bolt across to her skidding to your knees at her side. “Dolores, Dolores!” You rally at her, giving her a quick shake of the shoulders as if this might wake her conscious mind up as it does a humans, puffing at your stupidity when it does not. Her body is limp, and her beautiful eyes lay open, blankly staring off into space. You stand and march to the nearest mechanic grabbing him by the shoulder. “Whats going on where’re you taking them?”

He - _or she,_ you’re not quite sure behind the mask of that pseudo space suit, stumbles aside taken aback by your assault. “Back to base. Ford’s ordered they get a full diagnostic and reset,” They answer, shirking out of your loosening grip to get on with their work. Elsie tucks her water bottle under her warm and wanders after you, peering at your peculiar behaviour. Hearing footsteps and fearing them coming for her body next, you whip around with your fists up. Elsie pulls a quizzical face at you, concerned about your reflexes. You let out a tight breath, quietly stunned by your own altered instincts. You eye her computer, and a spark of opportunity pops into your mind.

“Gimme that,” You pressure, not even pretending to wait for an answer before snatching the laptop right out of her hands. Closing what she was doing with a quick swipe of your finger, you turn its remote connection on. Your muscle memory means it takes mere seconds to connect the computer-tablet to Dolores, tapping quickly on the screen searching through her mind. Everything was there, no-one had interrupted her coding yet.

“What the hell are you doing?” Elsie folds her arms, watching over your shoulder. “You shouldn't be doing that out here, Ford wants them all recalled. I mean obviously you cant repair all this yourself, thats why it was called in. Have you seen Peter Abernathy's head? Theres a fucking cavernous hole in it.”

Ignoring your senior colleague, you concentrate on the much more important task of making sure you’re not a crazy woman in love with a machine that can be switched off with a snap of someones fingers. Dolores wasn’t just in her code anymore, you know that in your heart and you just need to wake her up and hold her -

You want to believe - you _do_ believe, she's going through something. That, somehow, genuine feeling was exchanged from both sides -and that that love was transformative.

You can see your previous interactions and where you had archived the events of her loop; but there were big chunks missing in her event log, the whole of today _blank._ Only a starting conversation with Peter Abernathy. You remember how he walked in on you both in your bedroom that morning, naked and giggling like teenagers.

There were only snippets of broken code after that, as far as you can read it its the times her programmed script pushed through during you day together, the rest of your relationship unrecorded. _Did that mean it was gone?_ Had Ford done something to her? She was keeping things private from her code, you’re certain of that, but had she been able to keep it from _him?_

“Bring yourself back online Dolores,” You command, watching in relief as her eyes flutter, waking as though from a dream, empty this time, you hope.

“What - don't wake her up!” Elsie groans behind you and you shove the laptop back into her hands, despite her protestation.

“I’m sorry I must have …” Dolores starts sweetly, then her eyes connect with yours. “Frances…?” She reaches for you, her breathing picking up her chest heaving in panic as she looks around. You had been fighting, her parents bound inhumanly to dining chairs and murdered, treated worse than livestock, she’d had the gun ready, raised - then everything went black. Her eyes dart wildly, her emotions surging through her. “Where is he -I had the gun I was going to shoot him, I thought he was going to kill you!” She bleats, somewhere between panic and anger.

“He probably would have,” You admit.

“Oh God…my parents, he killed them Frances he - ” She falters, her hands gripping your shirt nothing short of _clinging to you,_ needing the security, something solid and real to hold onto. You wrap your arms reassuringly around her, stroking the length of her long messy hair trying not to give away your own trembling, not quite relaxing yet that everything was okay. 

“Its alright I’m here,” Your eyes close, grateful beyond any words that you can fathom. Dolores, _your Dolores_ was there, unchanged alive and _real._ “I’ve got you,” You kiss her cheek and draw back, nodding making sure she knows no matter what she's seeing right now or how little sense any of this makes, that you’re not going anywhere. She nods back at you, gasping her tears away with a touch of her finger under her eyelashes.

You help her up, and Dolores smoothing down her dress and touching that strand of hair from her eyes she seems to be just as she always was, except keeping one hand on you as she turns her shoulders slowly this way and that. She's about to turn too far - her father still lying on the floor, limbs at awkward angles, her mother already deposited in the back of the van and you bring your hand to her neck drawing her attention to you just in time. You want to spare her that harrowing image. “Who are all these people?” She asks softly, staring at their faces, the vehicles, the yard of her home never having looked so busy or full of confusing things. You feel her fingers dig into your arm as she turns back to you. “Wheres William?” She asks, her voice dropping low and husky.

“You know you’re just making more work yourself letting her see us, you’ll have to scrub this memory too why bother?” Elsie points to the buggy she was using, assuming you’d ride with her back to the Mesa.

“They … they’re Newcomers, sort of. Come on,” You loop your arm around Dolores waist and encourage her to walk with you. Your eyes anxiously check the mechanics over at the van hoping they hadn’t noticed yet that you had commandeered one of the Hosts on their list and walked right off with her.

 _“Where is he?”_ Dolores demands again with a sudden fiery insistence, stopping you in your tracks.

“Whose William? The man from before - “ You catch your breath, the fierce yet fragile look in her blue eyes sends a panicked chill up your spine.

“Yes. The one all in black. I know him.” She reaches for you, stroking her thumb on your cheekbone forcing you to focus your eyes on just her, ensuring you’re listening, before she says what she needs to in a slow, solemn kind of way. “His name is William, I remember him…all of it.”

You remember how she had stared at him, in the house preparing to punch his lights out with all the rage owed to her, when she had stuttered to a halt, like a steam engine running out of coal to light the fires that burned within her. You _knew_ thats what it was, but you’d not had the chance to confirm it or talk to her yet, everything had happened so fast. You were shot. This William guy had dragged her to the barn, you’d fought like kids on a schoolyard scrapping with bare fists as Dolores picked up a gun? “I thought you did.” You want to smile, congratulate her - stupidly so, but its the first real self-access she's had and the moment needs celebrating almost.

You place your palm over hers, bringing her hand around to your lips to kiss her fingertips tenderly, one by one. “You’re brilliant.” You whisper in awe. But for Dolores, its a curious thing to see, to feel. Her head tilts, watching your true-heartedness in each and every kiss, remarking to herself on the innocence and beauty in this moment. Your allegiance had an unlikeliness to it, she knew, but you were there, and that was what mattered.

“After I fainted … he was talking to someone.” Dolores closes her fingers around yours, slowing your kisses until you look up, come back to the seriousness. “Another man. I- I recognise him, too. Somehow. I’m not sure.” Dolores tried to make sense of it, what she could have seen from the floor, her coding clicked off and yet her mind somewhere inside, watching still, like when you had worked on her at the end of her narrative loops. Like another bad dream, or a waking nightmare, to not be in control of your own body but subjected to actions and commands not of your own will.

“Dolores, after I was knocked out, did he - ?” You start, but she shook her head, assuaging your guilt before it started building that you had failed her.

“No. He, was out of my field of vision. He didn't come back.” You exhale thankfully, a heavy burdened breath you didn't know you had been holding, blinking at the sky bidding your tears away and seeing for the first time, the blue was not mottled with grey clouds.

Between you, you’d done it, taken control of her narrative and saved yourselves, both of you _together._ She was gaining her own locus of control, your inner strength reflecting her own.

Dolores was gaining access to her memories. It was only a matter of time before she remembered how short a time you had really been in her life. You look around nervously, where you were, all these people, seeing you act like this with her? What were you even doing? What was going to happen when you - both of you, were back in the Behaviour Lab and they expected you to act one way, but were tending to her like your girlfriend? But looking into her eyes, so full of life and raw emotion, you couldn't help it.

Elsie puts her hands on her hips. “Wait, tell me I didn't just hear all of that.” 

You glance at the brunette, your senior colleague who is understandably concerned and perturbed and _downright confused._ She's pointing out the obvious batting your arm like _this cant happen, whats going on?_ You’d always respected and admired Elsie, she was technically a brilliant programer and was boisterous to the point of being rude, but she did a good job.

You hadn’t heard of or seen anyone outside of your narrative for 3 months, and this wasn’t the sensitive easing into modern life you had expected, this was a damn asteroid collision blowing a crater in your life. “Its complicated,” You put her off. some de-programming of your own brain was likely going to be necessary.

Dolores would need you to be her rock, whatever analysis they were going to do to her - and _you knowhow intrusive it is_ because you've done it yourself. A hundred times over to other Hosts in the same labs she was going to find herself in, nothing could prepare her for the way she was going to be treated. You cant explain it, and the sense of foreboding scares you. You can’t … _let_ her treated like that. Tampered with to the point that the woman you love could be erased. Could she?

But you cant let them see that she's awake, sentient beyond her code, either.

So you do your job, and help her now as best you can with navigating everything that she doesn’t understand. Somehow, you would have to let her know _not_ to be herself, but sit back and let the script take over. To be convincing. Not let them see.

You show Dolores how the door of the buggy operates, and help her up. She tucks the long blue skirts under her thighs as she sits down, such wide open eyes at this new world she was being allowed to experience. She had so many questions, the materials the colours the functions she wanted to learn all of it, but now isn't the time. You draw the cross body seatbelt over her shoulders like a child, teaching her. “Here, this wraps around you like this … like reins to keep you steady and not fall out.” You smile through your fears, nodding at her making sure she knows, you're there. Everything is going to be alright.

You climb into the seat next to her. “Where are we going?” Dolores holds your hand lacing her fingers through yours, the tight squeeze relaying more to you of how she's feeling that her words. Her watery blue eyes are flitting around her, you the only thing she trusts and understands. Dolores had held a gun, watched you fight for her, save her

“Uhh, what are you even doing? She can’t come back with us,” Elsie complains, shrugging her bag, the laptop and bottle of water onto the passenger seat, you and Dolores sitting in the back.

“Well she's not going in that meat wagon,” You argue. “She’s not leaving my side Elsie.” You lean between the front seats, keeping your hand safely around Dolores’ as you talk to Elsie through the gap. “I’m not asking you to understand just, trust me, okay?”

Elsie switched on the buggy with a modern whoosh, and Dolores leaps in her seat feeling the powerful engines firing beneath her. “You seriously want me to drive her back in a buggy?” Elsie sighs, giving you a lopsided look. She’d always had a bit of a soft spot for you so she was inclined to let it slide, besides which you’d been playing the wild west game for 3 months straight, she could forgive you for going a little loopy.

“I think Frances has already explained that, hasn't she?” Dolores pipes up indignantly. Glancing between the two of you, she's unaware of her difference from either of you or what it means that she's backing you up. It makes you smirk, and you give her hand a proud squeeze. _Thats my girl._ She smiles back, then raises her eyebrows impertinently at Elsie.

“ _You_ don't get a say!” She snaps.

Dolores shoots you a glance, checking to see if she should stop but you don't say anything so she carries on. “I say I do,” Dolores stands her ground. “And I want to stay with Frances.”

Elsie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jesus I’m arguing with a Host…,” She smacks the steering wheel in her hands, then digs her fingers into it with an annoyed growl. She shouldn't be doing this, letting you just ride back to civilisation with a Host like everything was totally fine and dandy, but she could already tell the Host was talking way off script and you were skipping around meadows holding hands with her.

How did you get just as delusional as the Guests? What was Ford playing at with his stupid pilot scheme anyway? She had been suspicious from the start and this only confirmed it was a bad idea. She adjusted the driving mirror pretending to get it aligned, but angled it down for a second, confirming what she thought - you _were_ holding hands.

“Just drive Elsie!” You’re done with this argument, and besides which you have to think about Dolores. She's more conscious than not, you haven’t heard a single scripted line since the one about the herd roaming after dark.

The programmer balled her fists with a growl. “Fine! Fine whatever … but you’re taking the fall for this _not_ me.” She engaged the engine and drove off. The buggy sped faster than any horse Dolores had ever been on, the rate at which the land blurred past you was disorienting and made her nauseous. For the first few minutes she curls into you, tucking her head against your shoulder and hides, and you hush her gently trying to remember how lovely it had been that morning to wake up together, how passionate she had been in her hunger to make love to you. Her simple, safe world was about to blow up in her face, and you cant imagine what this will be like for her.

Elsie hadn’t spoken since departing the Abernathy Ranch, and you were glad of it. The dread in your gut was enough to occupy you. Was Ford going to pull you from the team? Send another in your place? If the whole clean up team had been brought in to right the mess that had been made by William, they had been watching. They knew you had interfered in the narrative loop - something Ford had quite specifically said _not_ to do. You’d broken the terms of your contract, and awoken a Host consciousness to boot.

Dolores traced her fingertips over your hand, drawing your attention. “Hmm?” You murmur.

“Where are the tracks?” She repeats.

“What tracks?” You have no idea what she's talking about.

“Too busy thinking in that big head o’yours again, aren't ya cowboy…,” Dolores purrs, shaking her head at you. Her eyes dance over your face, her brow knitting softly seeing the fear in your eyes and she turns your head to her with a stroking touch to your jaw. “Don’t think about it, whatever it is that takes you away from me. Don’t.”

Elsie keeps driving, and you start to recognise the land where the Mesa is perched on top of, the palace atop Mount Olympus that oversaw your whole world, and hers. The canyon broke off into craters and tunnels which would lead the team into the naked underbelly of the Labs. “Theres just, so much, Dolores. I need to protect you,” You whine, the cool grey reality of the outside world coming into view, deep concrete tunnels funnelling Elsie to drive down inside. The closer you get the more your fear heightens. What if this was it? Your last few minutes with her, what if you're not allowed back in what if Ford finds her conscious mind and destroys it? Decommissions her body and leaves the Pearl on his desk as a reminder of false starts and bad decisions.

“I’m not a little girl, and I’m getting pretty good with a gun,” Dolores grins with false confidence.

“Thats not going to fix the problem! Its not - “ You want to get out the Buggy right now, swing the door open pull her out of it and run, run away before they get their hands on her, and you.

“Sshh…,” Dolores soothes you. The buggy slows and a clanking sound echoes up the canyon as the heavy metal shutter-door lifts, sensing the presence of park vehicles. She turns and watches it momentarily, like the mouth of a huge whale about to swallow you both up, its dark inside and she cant see what awaits you. But turning back to you all she can think to do to reassure you is press her pink lips to yours, holding your cheek playing her fingers into her hair behind your ear, giving you what strength she can. She needs you, and you nod sniffing and kissing her back. “I trust you.” With your foreheads pressed together as Dolores whispers, “So trust me.” 

You nod again, taking a breath and gathering yourself. Dolores needed you to be more; this is your job, protect her, take care of her. Its just, morphed into more than it was ever intended to be. “I do.” You kiss her again and ease back. “And I promise you Dolores, I _will_ explain everything. All your questions I will … do my best to be truthful. I promise you that.” Elsie drives into the warehouse sized space where all the vehicles are parked up, navigating her way into an empty space. “Cos you're going to come out of this with more questions than answers and even though its gonna be hard to hear and … and-and see…,” You tell her agitatedly, trying to sound in control but you can already see the flood of questions form in her mind. Dolores silently absorbs the grey concrete architecture and array of transportation much more than just a steam train, her head whipping around this way and that like a child on a rollercoaster, looking back at you with a strange wonder in her features. “Its going to be damn hard to explain too but I love you and I cant … _keep pretending._ ”

Dolores lips thin, a fleeting moment of concern. “You’re not pretending about how you feel, are you?”

You balk at the idea. “No! Jesus no, I mean I cant keep pretending that… that Westworld is … I mean I’m not _just_ a rancher …,” Elsie kills the engine, thanking she's damn glad that she brought you herself and not anyone from there rest of the team because at least she could take you to one side and legitimately give you a slap later. She eavesdropped on your conversation half delighted hearing you struggling over the stumbling block of ‘ _Westworld isn't real, its just a game and you’re just a pawn’_. “I cant explain all this now, not with everyone … everything …,” You’re hands are shaking and you don't know the words, there is no script for this like there was at the beginning, you had your lines you’d reviewed them with Bernard before taking the job and you _knew_ her code, her lines she said and how you could respond, it was comforting not having to _think._

Dolores clasps her hands around yours and pulls them into her lap. “I know.” She says calmly, more steady than you are right now and you’re meant to be the one protecting _her._ “I’ve got you.” Her whole demeanour is collected, and in control, and you feel yourself falling into the subordinate role for just a few moments. This, is a Dolores finding her voice dealing with your anxiety and struggles laying at her feet. Just as her physical safety has been your job to safeguard, she knows, somehow that if she is going to keep growing then she will need someone at her side to develop and support her freedom. “I can take care of you.” Dolores says firmly.

God, you wish so badly for it to be true.

Elsie rolls her eyes to herself, having heard enough of this bullshit. She undoes her seatbelt and turns around to look at you both like misbehaving kids in need of a telling off. “When you guys are done, do you mind clueing me in on some of that explanation there Frankie? Cos Jesus, what I’ve just heard is - “

“Frankie?” Dolores cuts in, almost sounding insulted at Elsie’s over familiar use of your name. “You mean Frances.”

“Its a nickname,” You mutter, unbuckling her seatbelt now too and lifting the straps off her shoulders trying to prevent them catching in her hair. You both step out of the buggy, Dolores noticing how the ground is hard like rock, but smooth like porcelain, not shifting beneath the soles of her shoes like grass and dirt do.

“Frances makes you sound like an old woman,” Elsie snorted. “Cant imagine what _that_ was like growing up.”

Dolores loops her arm through yours, making her statement clear. “I think its pretty.” You side-glance at Dolores, quietly chuffed to yourself. If this was going to be the end, then, you had had a wonderful woman at your side, and even for the briefest of moments you knew what it felt like to be loved, and that was a gift.

It was however, through a lens - using the mask of a role you were _given_ to play in her life, the Rancher, the steady protective force for her and her family. It had allowed you to grow beyond your single empty existence of working, coffee and tv. You’d grown as a person because of her, because of the things she had been through and you had witnessed - they’d changed you. Even if this was to be it, she would always be with you in some way.

You both wait as Elsie fetches her things from the passenger side, before you follow behind her through the dank concrete underbelly of the Mesa toward the elevator. “She has one like yours,” Dolores murmurs, pointing at the fold out computer screen, poking out the back pocket of Elsies jeans.

You never realised she’d noticed yours, but between all the nights recently resetting her and staying with her, or the last time, in your bedroom, you probably had gotten lax at packing your things away in favour of waking her back up. The three of you step into the elevator, Dolores arm still looped through yours. At some point, she must have seen it, and it _not_ been a blacked out splodge like it was in her bad dreams. “Yeah, Elsie’s a programmer. We used to work together until I moved to the Ranch to work for you and your father.”

Elsie pressed the emergency stop button on the elevator, and the metal box shudders to a halt between levels. She whips the computer out and holds it aloft like something deadly. “You can see this?” Elsie stares at Dolores, who does a quick glance at you, then nods. “She can see the computer.” She repeats at you like she hasn’t had enough weird shit happen already today.

“Of course, why wouldn't I?” Dolores snickers at her not appreciating the significance of it. “There ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes. I don't know what it … _is,_ as such. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see it.” Dolores folded her arms defensively.

“Because you’re not meant to be able to!” Elsie flaps indignantly. She’d thought you were a decent enough programmer but hell the core code of this Host was ripped up and thrown out the window.“Why isn't she saying her line, that line - “ She waves her hand about trying to remember that line they always say.

Dolores’ features straightened. “It doesn’t look like anything to me,” She parroted in a simple, Host-like fashion. She flicks her eyes back up to you with a small, knowing smile.

“Exactly,” Elsie snaps her fingers, then the words hang there in her head, as it dawns on her that it was _Dolores,_ who said them. She was, aware of her scripts? Able to dip in and out of it at random, choosing what to say, or not…Elsie shook her head as the numbers didn't add up. “Wait - what?”

Dolores puts her hands up on her hips, half stepping forwards toward Elsie. “Thats the one you want me to say, isn't it. Did you write it?” She questioned - almost confronting. You hadn’t seen this side to her, and though your programmer self is intrigued by the changing moods and facets of her personality she was trying out, like a fawn stretching its long and rickety limbs before finding its balance; you’re also amazed at the developmental leaps she was making in such a short space of time. What had started as only missed lines, or faltering thoughts she was now fully in control - at least it seemed as such, in the light and not sitting behind the programming desperate to push through as she had previously described.

“No, it wasn’t me, its like super old code,” Elsie felt her ass hit the wall as she backed up out of Dolores’ dispute, who only followed her with a challenging quirk to her eyebrow expecting more clarification than that. She had questions, things that made no sense words that were not her own and people dressed in the oddest of clothing - then this woman, whomever she was, was the first person Dolores had met as her own self, and wasn’t happy accepting Elsies evasive answers.

“What doesn’t the mean? Its _what?”_ Dolores snaps.

Elsie holds her hands up as if surrender, glancing anxiously at you. “Frankie, this is beyond a bit of rogue coding - “

“She’s conscious!” You burst, the words leaping from your lips before you had a chance to debate the higher and lower arguments of telling someone the truth. Your drag your fingers through your hair and rub them down your face with a groan. You sound absurd, and you know it. But the three of you are in an elevator trapped between floors so there is no better time to say it, if its going to come out. And if nothing else, you’re going to need to back up.

The brunette started laughing, but was the only one doing so and it took only a few seconds of looking back and for between the two of you that this wasn’t a joke. “Tell me you don't believe that,” She breathed, almost fearful.

You step forwards joining Dolores, hooking your arm around her waist presenting a united front. “You cant tell anyone. Not anyone.” Your thumb rubs gently into the inch of skin between her corset and her hip, though still through her dress you can feel her flesh and she blushes softly, dipping her gaze acknowledging your endearment. Dolores looks back at the programer more confidently.

“You actually mean it.” Elsie’s expression falls, sobering out of the jokey attitude she had been having to the whole thing. She’d certainly been a sucker for the same thing herself over the years, Hosts doing all sorts of strange things that leapt out at her like signs of a forming consciousness. Repeating poetry and carving star charts into trees, but the more of a rabbit hole she fell down investigating these glitches, the more she found the source always to be broken recycled code from old updates. It was disappointing, sure, but kind of reassuring at the same time that things were happening for a reason. And that reason was inevitably runs of noughts and ones in the wrong order.

You lean into Dolores, pulling her to your side and she moves with the embrace, comfortable in it, allowing your need to be close; all the while more interested in watching the other woman’s reaction. She studied Elsie as you spoke, processing the range of emotions that the brunette was displaying, likely without realising. “Yes, and if they find out upstairs you know what will happen.” Dolores turns briefly to you, the crease in the corner of your eye signifying your anxious concern. She had seen it before, after she had woken from a bad dream and you almost cried, your cards held always so tightly to your chest and never quite letting her see them. “Please, Elsie.” You beg, as Dolores images the playing cards in your hand, and how she will touch the top of them bring them down to look for herself, establish her knowledge of your world whether you want her to or not.

“Don’t be scared.” She tells Elsie in a serious, low tone. “You’re in the uncanny valley now, but you’ll find your way out.”

Far from reassured, Elsie shudders at the words. Backed both physically and verbally into a corner by Dolores’ unfathomable intentions. She didn't have much of a choice at that point, you’d clearly lost your marbles and the Host was being _confusing;_ Elsie needed to get you to one side to really talk this through. She’d only been able to watch you from afar, flag up behaviours that ran off course, but was ultimately powerless todo so with Dolores attached to your side. Or you to hers. “Don’t make me regret this,” Elsie muttered, stomping as she turned around and pushed the elevator button, sending you all back on your journey skyward.

You press your lips to the ball of Dolores’ shoulder, and smile quietly to yourself. It was one person, but it was a start.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for all the elevators in this chapter. They seem to do a lot of riding around in elevators. But yay for more Elsie! I wanted to build her and Frances friendship a little, and I've had lots of comments for more Elsie so, she's helping ramp up the tension towards the finish line, and so Frances connect the dots a little.
> 
> I've already written a ton more, but I couldn't realistically have an 8k word chapter, so I've had to decide where to cut it.

As soon as the brushed metal doors roll sideways, a long modern hallway of the behaviour labs opens up to you. You’ve barely got a second to react before Elsie is pushed aside and two heavily militarised guards muscles into the small space of the elevator square. Your pulse spikes when what had been seconds before - a gentle affectionate arm hold, became from Dolores suddenly tense and tight. “Dolores - “ You say nervously, her eyes widening as they come straight for _her,_ not for you, hooking their arms under her shoulders and wrestling her out the elevator like an animal. 

You chest quivers, adrenaline primed to fight - but you're not in the old west now. _This was it._ “No - stop!” Dolores’ feet slip on the shiny metal floor pulling back against them. “Frances do something -“ She growls. Its only a few moments as they scramble to keep a hold of her, but you notice her eyes harden, darkening somehow. Her features straighten, like all the fear has left her and there is only focused determination.

Her grip on your arm is solid and unrelenting, like the very steel that was once in her arms has retained its unwavering strength. Her fingers and thumb formed a vice around your limb, as though wound tight on a length of wood that could snap into splinters if the vice kept tightening. The corner of Dolores’ lips twitch, rage flickering as she grits her teeth and it suddenly occurs to you - she's trying again, _she wants to fight back._ You suck a deep breath about to say something when the mettle in her eyes falters.

Her expression softens again and she starts heaving panicked breaths. “Please you don't have to do this, please don’t hurt him I’ll do whatever you say!” Dolores wails - and Elsie looks at you recognising the line at the same time as you, as if Bandits or some Black Hat were about to shoot Teddy and she tries to sacrifice herself. She had fought, and failed. Flipped back into programmed responses and practised lines.

You use the only power you have in this place and try to limit _your_ emotional response to her panic, and clear your throat. “Just give me a second with the Host please.” You command the Guards firmly. Glancing at one another, they release Dolores from the restraining hold and step back, allowing the three of you to finally exit the elevator. You gesture to one side, guiding Dolores with a brush of her hip. Peering furtively over your shoulder to make sure you’re far enough from both Elsie and the guards, you nod to her, see if she's there. Was her flipping into script done on purpose, a self protective mechanism when she couldn't push through her code and fight back? Or was it reflex? The she tried to fight and couldn't so her code took over? You cant fathom how it works.

Dolores looks suspiciously around you, fisting your shirt in her hands to keep you close. “What do they want where are they taking me?” She demands, sounding nervous, not scared. As if she's about to go on stage but hasn’t been given the right cues, only the basic premise and even that was not enough.

Jesus, what do you say? How can you sum up everything you need to in thirty seconds. “Remember you said once about sometimes your own words push through, and sometimes you say things like they're coming from you but they're not you?”

Her brow knits. “Yes, but what has that - “

“You can’t trust them, Dolores,” You say vehemently, not including yourself in the category of human anymore and its only afterward that you realise you're making that distinction now. Not just Human or Host, but trustworthy human and not. You draw her close, one last time bringing your arms around her slim waist, feeling the laces at the back of her corset and rubbing the criss crosses, trying to commit the feeling to memory of how her body and yours fit together, how she felt in your arms. The soft fluttering of her breath on your neck, the turn of her nose into your hair as she closed her eyes and whined softly. “Don’t let them see who you really are,” You murmur, turning your cheek just so, so the gaze of your eyes and hers collide with burning intensity as you press a final kiss to her cheek.

Dolores draws her shoulders back, a small upturn at the corner of her lips the only subtle reaction to your kiss. She strokes a simple touch of her fingers down your cheek, affectionate, somehow quietly possessive. “I’ll come back to you.” Dolores says it slow and reassuring, a resolute edge sharpening her words.

You nod, and before you think about it you say it - just in case you never get the chance again. “I love you.”

Dolores does a small nod of acknowledgement, not allowing the weight of such a statement to hang any longer than needed. Uncurling her fist from your shirt she backs up towards the guards, mouthing the words for only you to see. _Wait for me._

Even as they muscle their arms through hers again, a guard flanking her on each side you ball your fists, at least waiting until she's around the corner- _Gone,_ before you stamp your foot and growl angrily at yourself. This was so fucking ridiculous. Seeing her _here,_ in amongst clean clinical glass rooms of other Hosts sitting naked and docile on stools, the reality of how absurd your feelings are hits you full throttle.

Out there it was so easy, to forget, to blend in, be part of the world you were living in. You had been swept away by feeling so free, and yet had been bound tightly in a loop to suffer night on night as she had.

You have to give your credit to Elsie, who had waited until now to wander over, arms folded across her chest. She had stayed out of the way, probably inwardly judging you but hadn’t gotten her ass involved, with good reason.

Rubbing your hands exhausted over your face, you turn to her. “I suppose Bernard will want to de-brief me, or something?” You widen your arms to rest your hands on your hips, feeling out of place and foolish wearing your western get up, breeches and boots, some random male sized shirt and your plait likely more undone than it was held together. You’d attacked a Newcomer, punched and kicked and landed a good few blows, rolled over and around on the ground with this, William guy as though it were perfectly normal. You notice the dirt under your nails, the reddish-brown tinge thats ingrained itself in the lines of your hands and how you’ve never even noticed that before. You were used to the old west, and looking about you now, how sleek and grey and metallic everything was, you had to admit you preferred it out there.

Where you could scrunch a handful of dirt in your hand, smell the earthy textures and watch it blow from your palm as the wind picked up the tiny particles and carried them away. Where the cattle brayed outside your window each morning to wake you, and you felt her nuzzling between your shoulder blades, her arm draped over your waist and you daren’t move for the risk of waking her.

Those perfect moments were the life you wanted.

But perhaps it was, too perfect. Perhaps Ford was right all along, and the park had played on your desires showing you a glimpse of who you could be, by giving you something to overcome, to find yourself through your need to protect her. Was that all it really was?

Elsie rocked back and for in her boots narrowing her eyes at the emotions you were trying to keep hidden, but not doing a very good job of it. “Oh I’m sure he’d love to get first interview, you know how obsessed he is with mapping human behaviour.” She nods once again at the elevator, giving you subtle direction, and follow by remote instinct alone. “But Ford wants to you downstairs first. You’re his ‘special project’ or whatever.”

The doors pull shut and she presses for the sub basement, the level between all the functioning labs and offices before you get to the livestock storage below that. As though Ford was the keeper of two worlds, he alone able to breach the divide. His creations were beneath his feet at all times, where he probably wanted everyone to be.

You stare at the little red lights blinking and changing with each floor you descend past. “Dr Fords private office?” You check, just as the elevator stutters to a halt and you peer at the corridor like you’ve come out on another planet. You were a good programmer, for sure, you had the talent to get the job on this team but Fords office…only Bernard ever went there.

Elsie fiddles with the company issue water bottle then offers it vaguely to you, bag still hooked over her far shoulder.“Never even been there myself, been working my butt off for years and do you think I’ve got an invite?” She muttered, passing you the plastic thing, and you stare at the wastefulness of it. You’d drink it, and chuck it in the trash. At the Abernathys you had a metal cantina covered in hide that hung from your saddle. You unscrew the cap and take a sip of water, sighing thinking about all your things you’d collected, bought or been given during the contract. All of them stuck there and, _belonging,_ in there, not out here.

You’re struggling to be excited about this opportunity, the nagging worry about Dolores and her consciousness being erased through their tests. “Dolores has been in service working for 35 years. I bet she's never seen it either.” You point out, and Elsie just rolls her eyes at you as though your comparison of host vs human workload don't exactly mean anything. “What are they going to do her?”

At a crossroads of corridor, off to the left the hallway was swallowed in darkness, the overhead strobe lighting flickering faultily. No-one ever came down here to need these old levels anymore, and thus had been laid to waste, no care taken to their repair. “Don’t you mean we?” You refuse to answer, so Elsie just sighs and looks around not really knowing which way to go. “She’s getting a full diagnostic, you know the deal. Same as always but like, 100% deeper. Ford level deep.” She pulls up the blueprint of the building and zooms around the plan looking for which corridor you're on, using her own device as system locator, then points to the right, discovering the route.

“Hopefully not too deep,” You sigh to yourself, trailing along beside her kicking your feet stubbornly into the non-existent dirt. You didn't like feeling like this; the not knowing, the not being able to protect her. You were a fool for falling in love. But this evolution of hers wasn’t about you, or your heart getting broken - hopefully that wouldn't happen but you had to accept the very real possibility; no, it was about her. Dolores was more than a machine, and you knew it. If Elsie believed you, maybe Ford would too. Maybe he could, let her go free?

You check the map Elsie’s still got pulled up on screen, seeing one more turn and you’ll be there. But just as you’re about to step around the corner into the main corridor, she flips the computer shut and grabs your shirt, yanking you through a half open doorway. You stumble sideways, and you’re about to complain but she's beat you to it. “Look, I gotta ask.” She shoves her stuff away in her bag and hooks it back on her shoulder. “C’mon. What was all that. The consciousness stuff. Holding her hand? Bringing her back online on set? What were you doing?”

Crossing your arms defensively, you can tell you maybe jumped the gun a bit assuming that Elsie had believed a word you said. “What they put me there for,” You play pretend, tipping your chin to feign confidence and attitude you didn't normally carry. “My character is meant to, be there for Dolores and her family if she needs me.” 

Elsie snorted at you. “Bullshit.”

“It was acting, Elsie. Thats it!” You flap your arms out from being so defensive, instead shifting about fidgeting with the mere feeling of saying such things like they were true. What if Dolores ever heard you say them? You’d be mortified if she believed thats what you felt. She trusted you. But this world was more precarious than hers. “She wants to believe she's different, that she's going to … oh I don't know run away down south with Teddy - “

“You’re a terrible liar!” She laughs, playfully nudging your shoulder. “Frankie this is me. I get it. okay? If it was Clem I’d be feeling bad for her too, maybe not _shooting myself_ every day, level of self mutilation type bad but, still pretty fucking bad.” Elsie puts her hands on her hips and tries to ease the pressure off you a little. She couldn't understand _why_ you were acting all loved up with the Hosts, but she was also reluctant to blame you for it. Westworld had a way of seeping into your blood, and it bothered her just how well Ford seemed to have placed you, for it to do just that. “Just talk to me.”

The number of revelations in that sentence were too many to quantify. One thing though seems to eclipse the rest. Not the fact she and perhaps others, have witnessed your lack of coping, your psychologically dangerous habit of self harm, shooting yourself to suffer the pain Dolores was, that you were not saving her from. That you deserved the hurt where she did not. But that Elsie would be sympathetic to a Host. A female one. “You - like Clem?” You garble, astonished that you hadn’t worked this out before. You try and remember how long you had been working in the same team with so little small talk passing between you. You knew nothing about her besides her technical ability and how Bernard leant on her for tricky cases. “I didn't know you were into girls.”

“Okay cos thats most important takeaway of my sentence.” Elsie rolls her eyes at you. “You seriously never noticed? What, the shirt and blazer combo not a big enough clue for you?” She gestures up and down herself with obvious willingness for you to appraise her figure, which you do only so she can prove her point. It feels awkward and forward of you, so boldly checking her out when Dolores had only minutes ago left your arms. You’d never thought of Elsie like that, assuming as usual that there was no-one around _like you,_ that everyone was either straight or happy pretending to be. “I thought you had a degree in sociology and behavioural sciences,” She teased, the corner of her eye twitching, and you catch the vague glint of flirtation.

You cheeks blossom pink. “I do…”

She smirked, having caught you out and found lacking. “Look, I’m just saying, you need to talk about it.” Elsie gestured out the door suggesting you get back on course. “Ford fucked you over with this job and we all know it.”

Walking alongside her, you hate the feeling that overcomes you. Foolishness. “What about the other programmers?” You quiz her, trying to put off the feeling. That you fell for the Park, for the girl, that you wanted to go back more than you were inclined to stay here. All the modern conveniences the ‘real’ world could offer wouldn’t sway you; not when your heart craved more of that girl that had slid a flower in your hair, lain in the grass with you and curled into your arms between the bed sheets.

And yet, the thought that maybe Ford was playing some game with you, was disconcerting. It should have stood out to you. You had thought yourself special he picked you, given you this opportunity. You never stopped to think, why not Elsie? Why not senior programmers with more experience than you?

“What others?” Elsie stared at you, bewildered.

You touch her arm, stopping her in the corridor. “There were 10 jobs, I got one, who got the others? Are _they_ coping, I mean…?”

She shook her head. “No-one else left the team. And QA can’t even code the animals right so there’d be no point going there. Besides, not many people are crazy ass enough to take a job like this.”

 _No way,_ your mind reels. How was there a job interview process for 10 jobs and you were the only one doing this? “No-one else is in the park…,” You say, needing to hear the words for yourself.

But the more you race through the sequence of events, the more a true possibility it becomes. There was no selection process, no-one anxiously warming chairs outside Bernards office lining up for an interview, no chatter of it in the break room or the bar atop the roof terrace. No excited banter between those going. You pinch the bridge of your nose and try not to panic, that this … _it couldn't be._ It was a set up. Ford had set you up…?

“I think, theres something more bigger at play here. Theres too much weird stuff going on,” Elsie chewed her words, shaking her head with suspicion. She never understood Bernard’s loyalty to the Ford; sure he was a literal genius and had created life itself, or a damn good copy of it. He revelled in his God-like aura of being able to creep around the building, overhear things, appear from thin air and control the Hosts with a level of personal puppetry reserved only for him. But Elsie didn't think that was necessarily a good thing. It made their jobs - and them, a joke, if Ford could come along and click his fingers and alter their update or reveal a hidden code planted only by him.

You were his playthings too just as much as the Hosts were, and Elsie didn't appreciate being the feeling of being controlled.

“What do you mean?” You worry. Playing cowboy had its faults, from the little things like getting sore thighs from riding all day when your muscles weren't used to it, to the big things like listening to Dolores screams every night. But it was simpler than being thrown back into the murky interests of corporate politics.

“You don't think its strange that Ford put you right where the biggest fucking Delos shareholder is gonna go?” Elsie postulated, speculating only taking her so far in working out Fords motivations. She could see the dots, if only she could connect them she’d be able to sleep at night knowing the puzzle was solved, and you weren’t gonna get yourself killed by treading on the wrong toes. “He always visits Dolores’ loop.” Elsie pulls a face at you, waiting for the penny to drop.

“He’s the what …?” You utter with a groan. “Shit.” Of all the Guests you could have taken a swing at, planted your feet in the dirt and said _enough, get your hands off my girl!_ You had to pick the richest most influential person in the company. “Thats why Ford turned up. Because this William guy wasn’t getting what he wanted and the narrative fell apart.” You drag your hand down your face kicking your stupidity.

Grinding your teeth, you take a breath and nod, accepting your decisions. You’d done it now, and you had been morally right to do so. No matter how important he was, his actions were wrong. You knew what he wanted its her, what the Guests do with Dolores, and if Elsie was right - that he had been back time and time again to drag her screaming to the barn and force her legs apart by her ankles, then it was about time someone stood up to him. The lens of the park had made his actions - in his mind, supposedly excusable. She was a Host. She existed for the whims and wants of the Guests.

He could’ve done the same to you, though. Would he have felt remorse? Finding out that you were human, if what he enjoyed suddenly took on a different light? And if Dolores’ memories were starting be accessible to her, if she understood what was right and wrong, and that the atrocities being done to her _were wrong_ , then was him raping her and raping you, still different?

“Just watch your back in there,” Elsie gives your shoulder a supportive squeeze, drawing you out of your thoughts. The tall glass walls of a final elevator beckoned, confusingly not on her map. You both stood inside, peering around and up and down as you search for a button to press, but there isn't one. It moves on its own, fully automated, the rough brown rock moving as the glass backed elevator descends only a few feet, before opening again. “Ah, there it is.” Dr Fords office stared at you from the end of the hall. “Oh, word of advice don't tell him you're in love with her, even though its blindingly obvious.”

You shake your head slowly, already focusing on the figures you can see moving around behind the deep shelves of curios that flank either side of Fords door. “I won’t,” You murmur, then blink at her and bop her arm playfully scolding. “I’m not stupid. And I’m not in love with her.”

“Are too,” Elsie grinned. “But hey no judgements here, she's got a nice ass.”

“Elsie!” You exclaim, laughing - briefly enjoying the camaraderie of having someone who understood the female oriented side of your sexuality.

“Just saying!” She held up her hands as if in surrender to the pretty girl you were talking about, when both of you register the near-silent swing of Fords office door flying open. “Yeah, looks like thats my cue.” Elsie skitters away from you tucking her hand quickly around her shoulder bag as if she had no reason to be here at all, stepping out the line of vision of the black-hatted man barrelling toward you.

William didn’t care to restrain himself. He was dressed the part and so were you, rules be damned you were fucking standing there like all wide frightened eyes like you didn't know _exactly_ what you’d done. “There you are, c’mere you fucking little - “

“Don’t worry you’ll be fine!” Elsie hastily patted you on the back and scarpered for the exit, jumping back in Fords great glass elevator to return the direction you both came from.

You stay frozen to the spot, watching in almost slow motion as William strides towards you, grabs you by the scruff of your shirt and hauls you with one powerful arm toward Ford office, and what retribution he feels you deserve. “Sir - please before you say anything I didn't realise who you were -“ You whine, a swing of his powerful arm all that was needed to toss you to the ground. Your knees smash against the stone floor, and you groan at the jolt of pain that reverberates through your bones. “Oww shit…”! You complain, finally lifting your head to look up and around you, where you were.

An old Host plays a melancholy tune on the piano sitting just to the right of you, and you stare at it, its lack of reaction or movement causing a chill up your spine thats not just from the concrete floor.

William was heaving angry breaths, taking off his hat to wipe his arm across his forehead as though the stifling air of Fords office was not what he was used to, then replacing it on his thinning hair. The hat that gave permission to so many things to be set free of his psyche, its chilling that he's still wearing it, because more than any other resident of the park, you know what it means.

“Now, what to do with you, hmm?” Dr Ford asks casually, his hands hanging loosely in his pockets as he peers curiously down at you.

This isn’t exactly how you had envisioned entering Fords office, and certainly not the trajectory you thought your career would need to take to get you an invite. But glancing up from the floor between the two men, you can’t help the fearful shudder that creeps through you.


	9. Chapter 9

A vengeful noise rumbled from Williams ribs. “I know what I’d like to fucking do,” He growled, his feet standing shoulder-wide practically over the top of you. Weathered lines were scratched into his skin; like notches on a bedpost the years had streaked themselves layer upon layer to create the imposing edifice that was now focused on you. His discontent was palpable.

You shuffle back on your ass trying to put some distance between you, recoiling as you look for safety. In each direction you look there seems to be fragments of something, mechanical or human, fibrous bone or skull. A long length of vertebrae hung ominously in the corner, and you're not sure what its from. You keep one hand up in front of you as you push to your feet, as though William is ready to strike you at any moment. “I was just trying to do my job. Dr Ford you put me in the park, signed off on the backstory - ” You implore Ford to get involved, to explain whats going on, distracted momentarily by the wall of grey clay faces behind Fords desk.

You’d already had William knock you to the ground once today, shoot you up till dawn and damn near break your nose with the butt of his gun. It had been his choice alone to leave you breathing or not, so you’d rather not take your chances no matter what location you found yourself in. You’re not sure what you expected of Fords inner sanctum, but the eerie reality of it reminds you almost of a museum. The unfinished fragments of Host structure and cognition were reminiscent of the unblinking eyes of taxidermy animals, condemned to sit forever inside a glass box. The cogs and wheels aesthetic where he had begun his journey still remained, a brass magnifying glass on his desk to physically tinker with the wires that once filled metal framed Hosts. Now most of the building was left to machines, too. 

“What backstory?” William craved the feel of his gun in his hand, wanting to point the barrel toward you and demand answers. But having surrendered it at the gates, all of this highly unconventional in the first place - he was left with only his physical prowess to intimidate you. Guests roaming behind the scenes coming in the service entrance was unheard of - even if he was the son in law of James Delos himself. “What’s she talking about?” William pressured Ford for the truth. 

Ford chuckled. “Well, if you must know, she's programmed into Dolores’, core code. If Dolores, and everyone else in her little loop remembers Frances here, it enables her to more easily navigate the day to day work she has to do.” He trailed his fingers slowly along his desk, inspecting a photo idly, tipping it back to peer at it, then return it once again to its given place.

William seemed more troubled by Ford now than you, and you were glad of the reprieve. “Which is what exactly?” He said huskily.

“Maintaining and reprogramming the Hosts, in their natural environment,” Dr Ford went on. You nod hurriedly in agreement, hoping this explanation of Fords pardons you from Williams wrath. “Quite the success its been too.” You were just doing your job, you had no idea who he was, it was quite simply bad luck that had you choosing today to take a stand. The unforgettable day you’d spent with Dolores had been the best day of your life, only to culminate in this Man in Blacks visitation. It was no wonder you were finally convinced enough to break out of your _own_ loop, and take the plunge, play the game and protect the girl.

William laughed at the cruelty of it. “This is conniving Robert, even for you.” His eyes rolled from you to Ford, and back again. Maybe it wasn’t your doing to start with, but it didn't stop your actions being, at best uncalled for. At worst, you were a foolish little girl playing make believe with _his_ girl. Dolores shouldn't remember anyone but him, not after all these years, and yet she knew you, with a snap of Ford fingers and a few inputted lines of code she knew who you were, every day, every time. “Planting humans to spy on me?” He continued bitterly, staring at you and your defensive posture with disdain. _Hark how she cowers now_ , he laughed. You had thought yourself something special in there, barking orders at him like a regular Newcomer with no experience and no clue, bolstered by adrenaline and a beautiful girl at your side, it had almost been refreshing to fight the good fight. But out here, you were nothing and nobody. He could see it now.

Next time he wouldn't hold back.

Robert ticked his head just so. “You misunderstand. I only did what you wanted, raised the stakes of the game,” His fingers lace together around his middle, thumbs playing with each other as though needing something to fiddle with, his mind ever processing something else beyond what he said. “I don't see any reason for such, an impassioned response.” He paused, his eyes grazing themselves down you like prey of some sort, a helpless fly in the web of a spider wriggling and making it worse for themselves. His lips smack together before continuing, an impish sort of smirk to the crease of his mouth as he returns his gaze to William. “But then again, you always have been a loyal sort.” 

“What the hell has loyalty got to do with anything?” William retaliates, shifting his weight taking a step toward your boss, his hands wide on his gun belt - except this domineering body language does little to intimidate Ford. As a programmer, seeing such primitive behaviour exhibited between them was almost fascinating, both men vying for the upper hand of the argument, just as thousands of years ago primitive man would fight for superiority over the other. The very behaviours you work tirelessly to code into the Hosts were being displayed before you now, even in this day and age.

 _This_ code had simply been passed along in human DNA.

“Well, of all your visits, time and again you explore, certainly, but you always find yourself back where you started, don't you William,” Ford says knowingly, teasing the older man with how he knows more of Williams trips than he lets on. You could go down the Cradle yourself and access every Hosts archived configurations if you wanted - you had spent a few hours examining Dolores’ loop yourself before this adventure began. Was Ford admitting to watching Guests in the park?

Had he been watching _you?_

“Does he mean Dolores?” You almost don’t realise you’ve said it out loud until Williams eyes snap to you.

Ignoring your interjection, Ford continues, intricately layering the pressure onto William, as though all of what Ford had done could be laid at Williams feet. “She was your first, wasn’t she.”

The black hatted man chewed his words like how cattle chew the cud, ruminating on the implication of what Ford was saying. His eyes darkened to the same black of his clothes, the corner of his lips flicking angrily. “Careful Robert. You still answer to the board and the shareholders. Don’t overstep your position,” He warned.

Your boss seems to find the admonition humorous, rather than dangerous. “Oh, I don’t answer to anyone, old friend.” Ford tinkered with a metronome, setting its pendulum into motion, side to side in a repetitive swing. He tucks his hands back in his pockets, eyeing the movement of the metronome for a moment, and you get the strangest sensation that the metronome is not just counting beats, but counting down to something. “And nor do you, not in there. Of course that is the point, isn't it.”

They’ve been arguing as though there was no human cost to all of this. It was all still about _them_ , the money, the Guests wanting to indulge their power and get their rocks off. The argument held until you spent long enough in there to really know the Hosts - to know Dolores as you did. What was the likelihood of their being other Hosts like her, others with dreams and awareness beyond their coding? “Unless theres someone there to witness what you’re doing,” You pipe up, fixing for your chance to confront him.

“You want to keep your teeth I suggest you shut the hell up.” William cautions you, the shine in his eye daring you to go on. _Do it. Lets see what you’re made of girl._

But you can’t stop. You know who he is and you can only guess the suffering he's laid upon her. To think of her smile slipping and giving way to fear, the terror in her eyes at the sight of her parents skewered and bled out like pigs, something you had always _\- always_ , shielded her from. You protected her from that final harrowing sight that would break someone not as strong. Her gentle soul would be forever tarred by his hands, and all the pairs of hands that have abused her. She saw him in her memories, _she remembered him._ “You must have visited hundreds of times; theres so many other things you could be doing than attacking and raping the ranchers daughter over and over again!”

“She’s one of Them!” He barked defensively, adjusting his hat as a ripple of unrest tested him. William pulled the black hat lower on his brow, a shield in his mind as well as around him, protecting him from the truth of what he had really done all these years. “Geez Robert you’re employing this girl? She's more kooky than Arnold was.” He laughs, deflecting how its making him feel. The stark reality of being on the outside in these clothes, with you here like you were a Host? He’d thought you were. It brought his actions under new scrutiny that they weren't meant to be, and he didn't like it. “It ain’t real sweetheart.” It was just a holiday. A place to blow off steam. Better in there than out here, where there were consequences for bending a pretty girl over a table, pinning her by the back of her neck. Dolores didn't mind.

“Then why do you enjoy it so much?” You push him. “If you didn't think of her as a real woman then you wouldn’t get that rush from tearing her dress and pulling her legs apart to have your wicked way with her!” 

“I swear to God Robert if she keeps talking I’m gonna deck her,” William growls, pointing his arm at you with a vicious jab in the air.

You storm at him, letting go of your fear. You couldn't care less who he was, or what he's done to you, hell the more you let yourself go the more your blood pressure rises and your nose throbs from where he smacked you down in the dirt.

But you can see what Dolores never could; programmed only to see the beauty in people she had _no idea,_ and it tore you up inside that he knew _exactly what he was going to do_ , while she would innocently smile and thank him for picking up her can. No clue as to what was to come. “You _do_ see her as real, otherwise you wouldn't have a favourite you wouldn't keep coming back for more! You wouldn't enjoy it you sick bastard!”

William rounds on you, his hatred prickling down his back the very hairs of the back of his neck standing on end. “Feel free, there are no cameras down here,” Ford hummed just at the right moment to release William from what meagre restraint he had left in him. Ford folded his hands together over his waist, his words barely having completed their syllables before William makes a grab for you. Even as you scarper backwards your ass hitting a cabinet of half-formed heads the whole thing rattling, William catches your hair enough to hurl you out the corner winding his arm back and punching you hard in the face.

“Ahh!” You cry out, crashing into the cabinet and slipping to the floor. You can feel the blood vessels in your nose swelling and already starting to burst, barely knitted back together from the fight earlier You try to scramble your feet beneath you but he smashes his fist into your face again knocking you back down pain splintering from your nose. If the bone wasn’t broken before it certainly was now. Your vision blurs and you groan, curling over, as Ford strolls around his desk to take a seat, watching with little care for either of you, or the tumult he's crafted.

“Didn’t you once say yourself, William, that winning is only meaningful, if someone loses. The Hosts are, programmable obstacles along your journey, of course. But ultimately you will best them,” Ford begins, the tips of his fingers forming a little arch, elbows resting up on the arms of his chair as he enjoys the show. Both of you defending your rights to be who you wanted to be, your evolutionary stories so similar and yet so different. He chuckles, a dry enigmatic sort of sound.

“Certainly it provides you, or whomever visits my little kingdom, the oft longed for sensation of being the winner, rising above the others, a titan amongst men.” He carries on talking as William kneels next to you, wrestling your arms out of your face out of his way wanting to land one more blow for good measure. It was uncalled for, by now. You got the message and had shut the hell up, but he was enjoying himself too much and this place, you, the hat … he was still susceptible to the allure of being free to behave how he liked. He succeeded in snapping one of your arms away and thumping his fist into your face one last time, splitting your lip giving you a nice round couplet of swollen bloody injuries. “But its a bittersweet victory, isn’t it, especially to someone such as yourself, who has played a great many times.” William catches his breath, dropping you limply to the floor and urging himself to his feet, cracking his knuckles feeling his age in his joints more than he would like. “Because you know, that at some point, _you will best them_ , no matter which path you take.” 

“They’re designed to lose,” He said slowly, glancing down at your docile form rolling onto one side, eyelids heavy and closing at the thudding thundering pains in your nose and jaw. You didn't want to hear this anymore, you didn't want to be caught up in their games. Your mind was unravelling, your comprehension of what had happened, what part you an unwittingly played in it all was traumatic to contemplate.

That you had been put there on purpose. Made to suffer, made to watch, Ford knowing at some point you would fall apart. He’d picked you because you were weak and too eager to sympathise with the Hosts, to see what you wanted to see, to wrap yourself up in your dreams of a life you could never have on the outside. You feel cold tears dribble from your eyes, run down your cheeks sideways in lines over your broken nose, miserable, humiliated and pathetic.

“Precisely. And I can conjure the image of loss and pain, watching the girl of your dreams being stolen away from you in the night. Poor Teddy must have experienced this, hundreds of times,” Ford’s speech was as prophetic as it ever was, you had innocently taken for granted however that these prophecies and plots didn't include you. “But thats all it is, isn't it. Good theatre.”

The one thing you could hold onto, was the desperate hope that what you had witnessed in her, was real. Her conscious mind fluttering its wings, stretching its legs for the first time and making small strides towards an evolution that could change everything. You _had_ to believe in her, she promised she would come back to you. You smear the blood from below your nose messily across your face, repressing your tears for you know however much it hurts, at least you know the truth now. You push yourself upright on shaky arms, keeping quiet for now.

Dolores would be upstairs with no idea what was happening to her, where she was, or why her lips spoke words not belonging to her. She would need you, and you’d already promised to explain everything.

William, the Man in Black, slowly draws his gloves off one finger at a time, inspecting his knuckles underneath for bruises. “Thats a lot of fancy words for saying you wanted someone to get in my way,” His words rumble huskily from his chest in a heavy southern accent, huffing slightly seeing _your_ blood on his gloves, the slick sheen of it on the black leather, and how he had fantasied over it being Dolores blood at the start of the day. Yet here he was, with yours on his hands instead.

“I wanted you to work for your victory, yes.” Dr Ford smiled, waving his hand to you gesticulating his point. “And Frances here delivered quite admirably.”

Your breathing quickens. “But .. you’d told me not to get involved in the narrative. Not to interfere!”

“And yet you did. You see, I knew your, contractual agreements would only appear important, for so long. Once there was a moral quandary - ” Ford wags his finger at you, his small almond shaped eyes boring into you as though he could read your very mind and everything contained in it. Just another Host to be examined and altered, controlled at his whim. “The greater good, comes into play. And look, what _strength_ , I have created in you. A determination of desire, you never knew you had.” You feel a sickening in the pit of your stomach. He’d controlled you, changed you, this whole time.

“Always another level.” William had to give it to him, he had his ways of making this place fun. He laughed and rubbed his hand across the stubble on his jaw.

Ford preens his feathers, his immaculate storyline coming to fruition, styled purely for William, for himself, to examine whether or not one would truly believe his creations to be real enough to fight one another for. To kill one another for. “Indeed. From the mere simulation of pain, and chaos, something _real,_ has been conceived.” Ford lands his gaze on you, a proud sort of smile teasing itself in the corner of his mouth. You had performed impeccably, better than he had hoped, even. It might not be the consciousness that Arnold had striven for, but it was an imitation so perfect, it forged a new reality in you, the awakening of, sides of yourself you never knew you had.One that provided, very real consequences.

Robert knew the kind of money certain men would pay for that.

“Thats … thats …,” You cant fathom it. It couldn't be possible, Dr Robert Ford was the Park Director. Creator. A hero of yours and of every programmer known to man. He had manipulated you like a play thing, a pawn in a cruel game to be enjoyed by old white men in power. “You used me …” You whisper, your voice cracking laden with emotion.

If he were in the saloon right now, this would be the time William would reach for a bottle of good whisky, clink tumblers and breathe hotly as the rich liquid seared his throat. But something in Fords story still irked him. “Moral righteousness wouldn't be enough to push her to save Dolores.” He murmured, slapping the pair of leather gloves into his palm, squeezing them and repeating the motion as he thought about it. Sure, any noble white hat would want to save the day and rescue the gal. But this wasn’t cheap thrills and shallow theatre, Fords whole game was giving him someone to really make suffer, albeit circumvented through the narrative of a Host, this Frances girl would get in his way because …his thought process trailed off. “Hell she’d only be compelled if …” He remembers the way Dolores flung herself into your arms. How you held her waist so tenderly. How Dolores screamed as he shot you, that same scream she did for her daddy every time. She was programmed to know you. _Love you._ Or so he thought.“Well. That explains a lot. You can lose the moral high ground sweetheart, you wanna fuck her just as much as the rest of us do.” You loved her right back, William realised, and he bucked his hand onto his hip with a laugh.

“I was playing my part, that was all,” You stagger to your feet, the deep split in your lip no longer bleeding, drying at least although you doubt its a pretty look. “At least I’m kind to her. All she's ever known is being violated and beaten every night by men like you,“ You say bitterly. You had played your part, and then some. But no matter how dreadful and humiliated you were, you had to cling on nugget of knowledge that _they didn't know_. That it wasn’t about you, or the Man in Black, or them. They were as blind and stupid as the rest; this world was about Dolores and _her_ kind.

“Suffering makes us who we are sweet’art.” William doesn’t give you a second glance at this point; the jig was up and the game was played. This game, at least, until the next one was laid out for him.

You hug your arms around yourself. “Just because you’re a twisted bastard doesn't mean you have to punish the Hosts for it,” You growl under your breath. It was impetuous and stupid and will probably cost you your job but you’re not thinking about anything except Dolores, and all the times you didn't fight when you should have, all the times you’d stopped yourself, held back because of Fords rules, when really he had been watching and waiting all along, measuring how much pressure you could take until you _couldn’t take it_ anymore.

You could have saved her sooner. You run at him clumsily, like a child banging their podgy little fists on a parents thigh for attention you pound his chest in angry fits needing to direct this feeling outward, this guilt for not saving her sooner not giving in to what you knew was right because of some bullshit contract and pay rise, like it meant anything against the degree of human suffering you had _let happen_.

He shoves you back with a repugnant look, you’re complaining looking more like a temper tantrum than an actual fight. “Goddammit get off me girl!” William throws you back but you shove him in the chest again, but he bats your arms away. “You don't know a Goddamn thing! I’m not punishing the Hosts I’m punishing _her!”_ He yells, his chest heaving with a truth he had held onto for so many years. He snatches the hat off his head to runs his palm over his balding head, what greying hair he had slick with dirt and grease from weeks inside Westworld.

This wasn’t the time, it was never the time, and it never _would_ be. She was a Host. He had been a young man back then, defenceless against the guile of a pretty woman falling into his lap.

William balls his fist and smashes it against Fords table, his hate curdling in his chest. You pant and catch you breath, staring at him. No matter what he does she’s there, teasing him in the corners of his mind, drawing his eye from the real woman in bed beside him, or judging him for the man he's become. Dolores held him to a higher standard, to how _she_ saw the world, and what she saw in him. But with one quick reset she had forgotten him, everything he had been everything they had shared, something so _true_ \- was gone. In that instance, looking back, William knew it was not only their interaction that had been erased, the version of her that he had loved, but himself. Billy, the inoffensive young man so skeptical of the world and his place in it, given purpose by her. He’d felt a whisper of the man he could become, _with her._ And then it was gone.

She was programmed to remember you. Not him. William winces in annoyance at the sting to his knuckles, as he uncurls his fist and inspects the top layers of skin scraped clean off, his mortality painfully visible without the gloves on.

Dolores would never be his. His eyes darken, and his head turns slowly toward you.

A cool chill washes through your skin, giving you gooseflesh and tingling fingertips. The cells of your heart excite with electrical pulses as you finally see it, you see _him,_ and the problem and all of it, making sense before you. “Oh my god, you’re in love with her, aren't you?” You breathe, staring wide eyed at him.

William re-centres his hat on his head, his posture rounding, as if the hat alone allowed him to step back into costume, into the role he hid behind. The Man in Black, the shadow outside your window, the seasoned killer every Host would fear if they remembered what he had done to them. “Oh sweetheart I was cured of that particular sickness a long time ago,” He lies, stretching his hands back into his leather gloves, welcoming the sensation that came with them. Oh the necks, these gloves had wrung, he mused, distracted by the sight of them, by how _good_ the power had felt.

“You love her! How can you do those awful things to her - ?!” You yell, your heart breaking for her. If Dolores remembered him as she said then she would know his descent; from whatever journey they had shared to the withered husk of a man he had become. She would grieve for him, you supposed, and then - _then what?_ If given the choice of fighting back, would she? Did he deserve to die at her hand for his crimes? You press your eyes shut, shaking your head. You cant think about this. Its not your choice to make, you had been wronged by Ford and been given a trauma that would scar your soul forever, but Dolores’ path was hers alone to choose, if you could get her there.

Williams rough grasp rocks you awake from your thoughts. “C’mere…” He orders, tugging you toward him, his gloved hands manhandling you by the scruff of your neck, your hairline pinching as he unknowingly yanked strands of hair clean out of your scalp. William leans down, his height and strength finding little problem in keeping you still against his chest. “Lets go pay your darling a little visit.” He murmurs huskily, his free hand catching the handle of his knife from its sheath behind his back, sliding it out to holds it poignantly in front of you, watching it shine in the artificial light in a way he's never seen. He enjoys the scent of fear rising from your skin, the sweat starting to form as your body signals the need for adrenaline, making you tremble. He can feel it through his glove, and he smiles. “See if we cant do the kind thing, and kill this little love affair in its crib.”

You gasp, feeling him nudge you your back to get you moving, and your mind races through all the terrible things he could to Dolores - to you, with such a simple thing as that knife. “Gerr’off me! No get your hands off me - Dr Ford!” You cry out, struggling against him but the hand that had merely held your shoulder swings around your chest now, his forearm pressing up under your throat holding your flailing at bay.

William knew how to hold you, you were no different to _them_ , the way you wriggled and kicked and he was well practiced. “Where’re they keeping her?” He demands from Ford, who smiles, and helps William on his journey, as though he were merely a signpost, providing opportunity for the adventure to continue.

“She’s with Behaviour. Room 47. 9th floor.” You’re nudged forwards to get walking along, as soon as the Man in Black has his information, the tip of his knife angled against your belly. His arm is fierce around your chest and shoulders keeping you steady, wrangling you like an animal. Your legs kick out, your fists fly lamely trying to hit backwards landing on nothing but air and brushes of his jacket as he calls the elevator down. “Oh and William?” Ford calls, walking slowly to the set of double glass doors, drawing the door half closed by the handle, ready to ease it back in to its frame once you were gone. Ford seemed to have taken the whole encounter quite calmly, as if he had lived it before, and knew what was to come. “Don’t worry about, making a mess. I’ll take care of it.”

William glances over his shoulder at the man, catching his eye for just a moment, acknowledging the rein he was being given. He wrangled you into the elevator with exhaustive panting breaths. “C’mon darlin’ easy now…” He hushes you, the smoothness to his voice churning your stomach, making your teeth grit somehow knowing that _thats_ the voice Dolores has heard from him in that haybarn, a hundred times over.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this got darker than it meant to. William confronting 35 years of hope that she will one day wake up, and trying his damnedest to make her react, to recognise him, to say *something*. He has a bit of an existential crises in relation to his behaviour toward Dolores all this time, why does he do it, does he enjoy it, what kind of person is he really, the Man in Black, in there? Or the philanthropist business owner of the real world? Who does he *want* to be. So much of this fic has been about choosing what kind of person you want to be, and I think this was Williams turn in that evolution arc. It was never meant to be about him, and the point is still focused on Dolores, and which path she chooses now witnessing the darkness of humanity for the first time, as a conscious being. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for non-con groping and physical injury of the reader.

The elevator rises up one floor, no button or biological input required. You’re fists are balled, your body bristling with the need to run or fight back, but either way _survive._ There were only so many ways human nature gave you to get through it; lock down, freeze, submit, or argue, buck and fight for every breath until you were away from him.

But you weren’t quite there yet, survival mode hadn’t fully kicked in. Sure the tip of his knife scraped your hip now and then as he shoved you forwards, his own steps echoing just behind your own, his tense arm keeping you hugged against him so you could feel the metal of his belt buckle in the small of your back, your ass. You try not to think about how he’s done this with her. But he wasn’t threatening your life, so much, as your love.

For that was the focus of all this, wasn’t it. He’d gotten his heart broken, and now wanted to break yours, make you suffer as he had by … by doing some god awful thing and you want to scream and do everything you can to keep him away from Dolores. But you had to be clever, keep your mind clear because despite the tear stains that shimmered on your cheeks and the discoloured shades of blue and purple blossoming on your nose, better to get back to her than stay on the cold concrete of Fords office, playing the victim.

So you submit, and let him manoeuvre you where he wants, in and out the elevator gritting your teeth only when his chin seems to brush your hair, leaning a little too close - close enough for you to feel the vibrations of his chest through your shirt and the warmth of his breath on your neck. It makes you shiver, a primal feminine fear of masculine power and prowess that you _hate_ lives inside you. You don't want to feel weak, you want to be logical and deduce the best way to get out of this, to get you and Dolores somehow back in the park without this black hat slicing her open like a salmon fillet just to prove his point. Williams motivation appeared to have shifted from not only punishing Dolores, but preventing his cycle happening again.

The elevator doors draw mechanically open, and the lights along the floor and ceiling strips ignite to the presence of someone new in the vicinity. Most of the cubicle rooms in Behaviour are already occupied, there are Hosts you recognise and some you don’t as your eyes search through the glass walls for sight of her. “What are you going to do?” You wrestle, feeling his threat more intensely now you could see Hosts - like her, sitting placidly in place. You start to kick your feet against the movement as he checks the small square panels by each door counting the numbers, looking for the right one. _God please don't hurt her,_ you mentally beg, _please let Dolores’ mind still be inside there._ You’d barely gotten to know her, your first full day with her true self and you didn't want it to be all you had. Snippets of conversation, lost lines here and there, and then today.

From the other side of the floor, Elsie was busy working on the butchers son who was meant to be cycled into service to take over his fathers job, the old Host becoming too glitchy to repair. Her fingers tapped her computer and flicked her eyes up and down from the screen to the Host, sighing at the brief interlude from the daily programming grind with you already being over. But then she sees you. A blurred movement two rooms over, and the Guest from Fords office wrangling you along with him. “Frankie…?” She murmurs, standing from the circular stool to wander to the wall and watch more dedicatedly.

Your memories of Dolores, blissful and serene by the river, shedding the top layers of cornflower blue dress, hot under the baking heat of the sun play through your mind. How at peace she was as you rode the valleys and hills of her home together, the lilting flirtatious lines she’d send your way, making you laugh and heat in a different way. Dolores had an innocence about her, a child running barefoot in the fields with no knowledge of what lurked outside the safe fences that bound her home. Part of you wanted to keep her that way, but the narrative had gotten shot to hell by William. Dolores was being exposed to the clinical reality of the real world now, and there was no wiping her memory to take you back to the girl she was earlier today.

“Bernard … that Delos board member guy has Frankie at knifepoint…” Elsies mutters slowly, not believing the words that are coming out of her mouth. But thats whats happening, and her heckles rise as she storms for the door. Bernard pushes his glasses up his nose, his eyes on her but his fingers move differently, inputting numbers into the control system of the Mesa, accessing this floor, the lights the doors, and locks the door of the room they're both in. “What the fuck?!” Elsie exclaims as she collides with the glass, yanking the handle and finding it stuck fast. She whirls around to Bernard expecting him to be just as horrified but the man simply takes his glasses off, and cleans them with a kerchief from his blazer pocket.

William spies Dolores’ tell-tale blonde hair before you do, and his pace picks up, the edge of the knife rucking under your shirt and pinching your skin as he tussles you forward, leaning his shoulder against the lab door to smash it open, the handle banging on the glass wall behind it. “Nothing that don't come with the territory,” He grins a little too much, glad for once that you - the writhing girl in his arms was facing away from him, and couldn't watch his expression change. William pauses a second. He blinked to himself angling his jaw, amused. It was only then he remembered you weren't likely to be examining his expression for signals as to how to respond, what behaviour he’d want in return, because you weren’t one of Them. He shrugged it off. “Here we go gorgeous,” William chuckles, removing his arm and hitting you between the shoulder blades shoving you to the floor at Dolores’ feet. You hit the ground, hands slapping the linoleum - catching yourself at least.

Dolores sat neatly on the round black stool, its silver stem and legs catching the brilliant white light that emanated from the circular strobe light overhead. Her feet are all you can see of her, which were flat on the floor, the stool perched on a stage of black rubber mat, as though the Hosts were to stay in their places - like birds tethered to a post. But even down on the floor, you can tell from Dolores’ lifeless body, so chillingly still - that she's not really there at all.

Your eyes lift slowly up her body, from bare feet, narrow ankles and soft supple calves, her hands laying limply in her lap facing upward, as if awaiting something to be placed in her open palms. They're delicately placed just so the hidden intimacies at the apex of her thighs are covered. You wonder if she's done this on purpose, if she managed to jerk her arm just so, making it lay right there and keep herself vaguely censored. You want to believe she controlled it, that Dolores’ consciousness was watching safely hidden in the dark of her mind. But to see you on your knees like this, your head being hauled back by Williams fist in your hair … God knows what she must think of you. You’re no help to her. You’d tried to save her and look where it had gotten you both.

Dolores’ head is vaguely turned to the side, her eyes open but …she’s not really _looking,_ at anything. Not at you, not at William.

Is she still in there? _Seeing,_ everything like a bad dream as she had before? Or had the gaps in her coding highlighted something to the tech programmer that worked on her, closed those gaps, reduced the space for her consciousness to thrive and squandered the chance for her to develop her sentience?

“Dolores,” You breathe, averting your eyes from her bare form, her nakedness so stark and unnecessary - you know how she’d hate this. You feel ashamed to look at her. Her modesty, her dignity stolen from her, made to walk without her clothes controlled via voice commands into the clinical lab room and sit down. Free to be ogled, stared at, or simply ignored, her feelings discounted because to the other humans and programmers, her feelings simply didn't exist.

“What the hell is going on!” Elsie yelled at her boss, turning back to the door and banging her fist on it, looking the thing over up and down and why the hell was it jammed?! She bangs the glass “Frankie!” She yells again but the sound is muffled, the glass thick and strong enough to withstand even the Hosts assaulting it, just in case. You couldn't have them revolt and smash their way out, feet crunching on the chunks of glass not fit for the purpose of caging them. No, this glass was bullet proof and almost impenetrable. Elsie stamped her foot in frustration at being stuck and not able to help you, so turns to the one thing she can do, and starts to hack the system.

William yanked you nearly to your feet, half way between your knees and standing - all your weight hanging in his grip as he pushes you into Dolores’s blank face in an antagonistic, confronting manner. “Look at her!” He barks, but the shallow emptiness of her eyes is painful to witness, having seen them so full of life and love. You fix your head away, ducking you chin and curling it into your shoulder but his hand still gripping the knife takes you by the chin and forces you. “I said look at her! She's not real, she's a fucking doll!”

His fingers are jammed into your skin and it hurts, but staring at her silent machine-like husk, shut off and unresponsive, you press your eyes shut. Dolores is probably in there right now, still watching, still aware. “You’re wrong,” You tremble, her bad dreams of you leaning over her, fixing her up and seeing … still seeing even while in sleep mode. What must she think of you? How were going to stay true to her, while convincing him he’d won? How else would he leave you both alone?

William relents a little, letting your face go and settling for holding you on your knees in front of her, like forcing you to kneel at the altar of the woman - _the Host_ that had you both tied up in knots. Profess your sins. Beg forgiveness. “You can preach about being me being evil much as y’like but she don't remember a thing about it anymore, only you do,” William rattles, his hand firm on your shoulder keeping you down. The height difference, the way he's put you on your knees like this isn't just about her, theres something inherently paternalistic about it, a masculinity to his power that seeps into your soul like the darkness of a deep well you don't want to look down. “Thats what separates us, from them.” He uses the knife to gesture back and for. “Memory. Giving a crap about one another,” William tosses the knife a little in the air, turning it around in his gloved palm to point the tip toward you, as he stares at Dolores, a tired sigh about him. He was grateful he’d been cured of his delusions, it was only right and proper he did the same for you. Enjoying it was, well, just a perk of the whole thing. “She’s just a thing.”

You didn't know you were crying, but the way he says it, _what_ he's saying, cuts deeper than you would care to admit. Up until this whole thing happened, you would have agreed. The Hosts were programmable, high functioning machines, deployed in a realistic live action role play setting following paths laid out for theme by the Game Master, Ford. But all of you had suffered the same vice, of believing yourselves superior. For in giving the Hosts their personalities, their corner stones, you had not given sufficient care and respect to the people they were becoming, all of their own accord. In a battle of vice and virtue, they were clearly on the winning side.

“Her humanity is beautiful and more pure than yours will ever be,” You whisper through wet lips, your tears still running - grieving for this person you used to be, how stupid you had been, naive to think of selfish material gain such as money, like a bump in salary would ever counter the secrets you were complicit in keeping. You had worked on Hosts here, and wiped her memory every night and put her back to bed there, clinging onto the reality you believed was waiting for you on the other side.

But you see now, its not just Ford thats changed you, but Dolores. There was no going back to the real world anymore. Dolores might have been forged from steel, but her heart was golden. 

“Still don’t believe me huh?” William laughed, your blind devotion touching yet sickening at the same time. He saw too much of himself in you, in how you believed in that Thing and her real-ness, you’d been deceived the same way he had and seeing himself reflected back in your eyes twisted him up inside. The foolish boy he’d been, the poisoned man he’d become. You feel him lean over your shoulder, brushing his cheek against yours, and you try to jerk away from the intimacy of it. “Dolores wouldn't know if I killed you right here,” He purred huskily, holding the knife in front of your face, directly in your line of vision while you stare at her, as if he was metaphorically cutting the ties between you and Dolores with it, who stared passively away, unresponsive.

He twists the blade then, and presses it suddenly to your throat. “You cant …,” You whisper, bright burning fear suddenly gasping through your chest. “This isn't a game you're not in the park!” You fret, grappling your hands on his arm trying to prise the edge of the seasoned blade from your throat. _This isn't happening, it couldn't happen,_ whimpers quiver from your chest as he only digs it in tighter and you swear to God if you so much as swallow it’ll cut you.

Lamenting the truth to it, William is hindered somehow by knowing the Man in Black role he plays is just that. A role to step into, a release, where he didn't have to pretend to be the good natured philanthropist he advertised. He owned this world, or the majority of shares in it enough to be able to make such an arrogant claim. But he could never quite _own_ his western identity. The Man in Black was put away for another vacation, and William hated having to fold the persona into something small and insignificant, chalk it up as another weekend away from a stressful working week, when he really only felt like himself, in here. There. William winced at his thoughts, _you and her, this hat it was all … too intoxicating._ “No, I can’t,” He grumbled, the corner of his eye twitching as his personalities waged war on one another. What he should, and _shouldn’t,_ do.

What he wanted to do.

William looks around him, at the darkened rooms of switched off Hosts awaiting instructions, they weren't witnesses. The few programmers that were around were not close enough at least, and even if they caught sight of anything they could be paid off. William mulls it over, letting it out, just a little more. If only you were in the park right now he wouldn't have to be so bloody self-conscious.

Deciding no-one was in the vicinity that would see, or stop him, and Ford having told him not to worry… he would smooth things over with you, he ran his tongue along his front teeth and switched his blade into the other hand. It freed up a hand, and while the other fixed you in place depressing the handle of the knife into your collar bone, he switches his gaze between Dolores limp body and your trembling one. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try my damnedest to see if I can’t force a reaction out of it,” He breathes huskily against your ear, his hand slipping through the open V at the top of your shirt, skirting his fingers down your chest, shooting a final furtive glance around him as he does it - as if knowing he shouldn’t get caught doing this. You were an employee of the company, a company he owned … did that mean he owns you too? William grins at this idea, finding the roundness of your breast and groping you slowly.

Your fists ball tight, so tight, your arms locked and rigid and your whole body freezes, fixed in place. “Get off me …,” You manage to threaten him through your locked jaws, your lips flickering with the desperate rage to push him off, but you don’t. You can’t. Your eyes are staring at her, while she stares at nothing, and pain starts to build the lactic acid pooling in your cramping muscles so fixed in panic, against their will.

William takes his time, watching Dolores for something, _anything_ of a reaction, murmuring incomprehensible words from his throat as he digs his fingers in, his grip on your breast too tight, too painful, _possessive._ He ducks his gaze momentarily, watching what his hand is doing, enjoying the visual of it. “C’mon Dolores…,” He goads her. You’re about to shut your eyes, squeeze them shut like they're the only muscles left under your control, the fight, flight or _freeze_ response keeping you place, telling you get through it, _survive;_ when you see it.

A flicker, in both her eyes. Its only her eyeballs, she’s not even blinking but her eyes they flicker and move and find you, locking her gaze with yours, a terrible sadness washing through her expression.

“No …. no no don’t…. don't do it don't do it -“ The tiniest of headshakes accompanies your breathy mutterings, practically snarling orders at her not to move, _not to move._

Don't let him see you. Don't let him win.

Dolores eyes dart away again, straighten out, and you crumple back against his shins. She’d let you know, in the minutest of gestures, that she was still there. _Your Dolores_ , despite everything she was alive and conscious and safe from their testing and - did you really see her eyes flicker? It had been so momentary. You didn't just imagine it. Did you?

“What’re you jabberin’?” William straightens, his shoulders shrugging as he leans back up and his hand drags out. Even that didn’t kick a reaction out of Dolores. Even with all he’s enjoyed with her over the years, if she didn't fucking step up and stop him attempting the same on her supposedly _base-code approved best girlfriend,_ then there wasn’t much else for it. “This is probably gonna cost me a lot o’money in compensation, but, what the hell. Better to know once and for all.”

You crane your head back sniffing through your tears as you stare up at him questioningly. His movements are swift. He snatches the hem of your shirt, yanks it up, grabs the handle of the knife back into his dominant hand and swings his arm down, plunging the blades shaft into the flat of your stomach, half-way up to the hilt in a single, devastating stab.

“No fucking way!” Elsie screams from her glass cubicle, furiously hacking the system which was keeping her locked inside. Bernard sat docile on the stool, frowning softly at the blueprint on his computer screen, codes for the door mechanisms activation flashing at him.

The pronounced jolt of pain you think would come with being stabbed, was more of a delayed realisation that there was something sticking out of your stomach, that shouldn't be there. You slowly lower your eyes and stare at the hilt his knife and where the silver disappears into your flesh, hot red blood oozing out, and its surreal.

“Well would ya look at that,” William shifts his weight back, stepping away and drawing his arms to his to belt, his chest sighing at the final damn conclusion of 35 years worth of study. Without his legs behind you, you crumple backwards, falling from your knees to your ass in a slow, wretched groan. Your body starts to shake, the shock setting in as blood leaks from your belly and the growing sensation of feeling cold creeps out from the wound across your abdomen. “Nothing at all.” William sighs, knocking his hat up slightly as he rubs his fingers across his eyes pinching them, his chest starting to heave emotionally.

He was so sure … _one day,_ one - goddamn - day she would be awaken and look at him again, and his heart would burst with a joy that he’s not felt since he lay with her in his arms on board that train. The smooth rocking motion of the wheels beneath them, her gentle mewling gasps as he whispered kisses up her neck, the way she nodded and parted her thighs, guiding him. 

But it was a lie, wasn’t it. She didn't want him, she never did. She had _ruined_ him. For going back to the real world after having felt, _truly felt_ something he could never quite get back, that was always just beyond is fingertips, was an agony that punished him his whole life for one, single indiscretion.

If even _you_ couldn't shake her awake, not even … this? William staggers back a step, nostrils flaring as he stares down at you, wild eyed and chest heaving as he _sees you._ What had he done? He banged open the cubicle door clumsily, barking down the hallway. “Medic!” He glanced back at you, you’re coughing now and its shifting the knife a little and theres blood speckling your shirt from each breath, each cough and William pales. He's strides back inside and hefts his arm under your shoulders sitting you up, “Don’t you fucking die on me,” He warns you with a throaty growl, the crashing reality of his behaviour confronting him - how easy it was to be the Man in Black, how hard it was to step away from.

The cold creeping pain is like nothing you’ve ever felt, its not sharp or thudding or aching, its emptiness. Your hands are trembling and coming together around the wound, a desperate primal need to cover it, hold it closed, cling on to life. You feel his arms around you half picking you up on to his lap and you barely register it, your eyes on _her._ Dolores. She's doing what you told her. She's not moving. Or, she's not there. And you’re about to die.

Then you see it. A single, lone tear gather and fall down her cheek. You gasp a deep shuddering breath. In that moment you see everything you need to see.

William was besting _you_ now, and unless … unless you convince him that he's won, that you’re freed of your delusional love affair with her, you would never get you both to safety, free, and alive. “You were right,” You croak, coughing up blood with your attempts to use organs probably punctured.

“What was that?” He mutters, hefting you up a little more to lean against him. He stares at the bloody wound on your stomach almost hypnotically, hears the sound of the sticky rub of your blood on his gloves as he moves, feels the weight of you in his lap.

Ford had his ways of being powerful, plotting and pitting Hosts and Humans against one another like a kid with a sandbox of toys at his disposal. But this, life and death, love and grief, celebration and tragedy … this was worth more than all the shares and money in the world. This, was power.

“You were right,” You repeat, your voice choking wetly on the words. “I just wanted someone to love me,” You lie, watching the tear on her cheek and hating how she can see, can see everything right there and do nothing. She was trapped between choosing her own survival or yours. So you have to do it for her, to keep both of you going you need to lie and you need to get one of those plasma healing torches they keep around the park at rally points and heal this wound. “I was pulled in by it, who wouldn't be.” You tell him, hoping your current dire situation would have him believe whatever you say. “I wanted to save her,” You whimper. If Hosts could be patched up from any number of times from bullet holes and gory deaths you could manage one knife wound.

William chuckled hoarsely, keeping you steady on his lap, almost hugging you. _You,_ were real. The thing on the stool you were fighting over was not. “You could barely save yourself.”

You concentrate on the in and out of his breathing, your limp frame rising and falling as the muscles of his chest lift and expand, as if transforming, encapsulated in an existential bubble together. Were you dying? Or being reborn? “What are you talking about?” You groan softly.

“It felt good, having someone to fight,” William murmurs, “Perhaps it was, impulsive of me to try and finish the game now.”

Elsie leapt back with an excited grin as she managed to unlock the door against the systems will, punching the air with a self congratulatory fist before throwing the door wide and pelting down the hall on her sneakers toward Dolores cubicle.

“Meaning you regret stabbing me?” You cough bitterly, smearing the blood from your lips with a rub of your quivering, paling hand. You were losing blood.

William’s attention is drawn to the figure running down the hall, a white and red clad body shop worker chasing behind her from the elevator with a medical kit. He presses his mouth into your hair whispering, “It means, I’ll see you on the other side darlin’.” Despite the state of you, you wince and shift pathetically from the heat in his breath. “Go get yourselves a little love nest. I’ll find you.” His words hang in your mind, your eyes widening slowly as his meaning formulates itself more clearly. He hoists you up just enough to slip out from underneath you, carefully laying your upper body back onto the ground eliciting a deep burning groan from inside you. You weren't in control of it, these sounds, they were a voice beyond your own emoting and clinging on to life. You stare up at the full height of the man, shades of black and grey and tall, so tall taller than you down there on the floor taller than Dolores motionless on the stool. He strolls to the door before looking back at you both, shifting his gaze from you, to her, and back again. He was on the other side of her, opposite the cheek that held the tear of life and you pray he cant see it from this angle. But still, your heart sped up in panic. William touched his fingers to the brim of his hat, giving you a final acknowledgement, a statement of intent. “And out there, I wont need to hold back.”

He strides out of the room, settling his wide brimmed hat back into place, his pace direct and formidable, glancing a sideways smile at Elsie as she bolts past him skidding to a stop outside the room and seeing the state of you through the open doorway. She snaps her head back to William who seemed to almost be waiting for her reaction, a sinister smile curling in the corner of his mouth. “You’re a fucking psychopath,” Elsie spat, only pausing for a second to shake her head at him judgementally, then rushes into the room ignoring Dolores as she searches madly through the drawers of tools. “Jesus where is it! We must have one up here -“

You’re not thinking about that, though you really should be. You need to grab onto Elsie to even keep your eyes focusing straight at this point, but you use her as a frame and climb yourself upright. For a second she stares at you aghast that you’re even trying to move at all when you’ve got a great big knife sticking out your abdomen - but in a few minutes there will be people here and Dolores has a tear on her cheek and you can’t let anyone see it. You reach, biting down a whimper of pain as you reach a little higher, and wipe her tear away, collapsing back uncontrolled to the floor with a strained yelp. “Aaah!”

“What are you doing! Lie down!” Elsie sighs exasperated as the first aid bag arrives and she scorns the boy bringing it. “You took your bloody time!” The red and white suited boy hesitated, stunned in the doorway. He looked about 18 and clearly the body shop appointed first aider for the day, not expecting to have to handle anything, let alone a life threatening stab wound. Elsie rolled her eyes at him as she snatched the bag, immediately rifling through it. 

“Its fine, Elsie … just gimme the …” You flail you hand aimlessly at her but she's already got the plasma healing torch in hand and without warning, wraps a tight grip around the handle of Williams knife, and slides it out your belly. “Ahhh…,” You complain, panicking at the amount of blood that starts to bubble from the wound, the blade having stemmed the worst of it up to this point. “Could’a warned me you were about to do that,” You hiss, slumping fully to the floor, staring at the ceiling helplessly as you rely on Elsie to start torching your tissues back together.

“Then you would have tensed up,” Elsie tries to play it with a smirk, that she hadn’t had the utter crap scared out of her just now. She’d literally escorted you to Fords office and left you in the hands of that revenge hungry Guest as if the modern day walls of Fords office would protect you from all that cowboy drama. Elsie didn't understand it.

Is this what it was like to be a Host? To feel like you existed almost outside your body, that you weren't in control of it, your mind whirring thoughts and fears and anxieties. The fading colours at the end of life and the cold that settled in your bones, at the mercy of another to tend to whatever injuries you’d sustained through the course of the narrative - for that was what you had been trapped in, one of Ford’s elaborate narratives. 

She depresses the trigger of the torch as she slowly winds it around in circles watching the tissue heal together, each passing second a little less blood visible. “I cant believe he actually stabbed you he's clearly insane,” Elsie mutters as she works. She was kicking herself for having not taken his threatening advance down the corridor at you more seriously when she left you at Fords office earlier. “Do we not have any security in this building?” Elsie continued talking to herself, finally able to linger the tip of the torch on your top layers of skin, not the tissue beneath, the distraught panic in her tense figure visibly relaxing as the last fibres knit themselves together.

You stare at the circular light on the ceiling, the white emanating light so brilliant and intense, you could let yourself get lost in the glow the way mankind was once fascinated by the moon. Lying on the floor in a glass cubicle with Dolores docile and obedient on the stool beside you, you sense that although it would ache a while, and you’d lost blood, the mark William had made on you wasn’t so much the physical one. That you would get over. But the other things … would stay with you. You feel Elsie loop her arm under your shoulders and try to assist you up, pulling your gaze from the light to the room once more. You hug your arms around yourself, fearing the extent of it, of what it could do to her, the sweet natured curious young woman you were painfully so in love with, to feel the effects of 35 years of mens hands on her body. Elsie peers at you, her dark hair like bitter chocolate loose from the hairband, the stress of it all softening the slightly androgynous personality she presented.

Managing a small smile, you lean on her gratefully and accept the help to your feet. “Its a thin line Elsie, between insanity and sane.” You glance at Dolores, sighing at her, and yourself. How much this had cost you, mentally, physically, how much you would need to pull it together to support her in the days to come. One thing you know for certain, is that this, all this bullshit stress and fear and glass cubicles were just, gilded cages. It wasn’t where she was meant to be and wasn’t the place you wanted to be. You wanted to wake her up and grab a horse, ride away from all of this back to the river, the sunshine where things had been simpler, gentle. You don’t want to be the cause of a bitterness growing inside her because of what she is, and what she's witnessed. 

You both shift your attention to the door, Bernard appearing in the open doorway looking unsettled and shifty. He clutches his laptop to his chest, eyes searching this way and that through the room inspecting it, as if categorising what had happened and where these events should be filed in his mind for future discourse and debate. 

“Oh hey Bernard, nice of you to finally join the _train crash_ thats going on over here,” Elsie put her hands on her hips, chiding your boss with her trademark sarcasm.

Bernard nods, not recognising the little dig she was giving him. He stared at Dolores briefly, then at you, and the still-damp blood stain on your shirt. The state of your nose and lip, the visible signs of your quarrels in the park perturbing him. “Dr Ford is, on his way up. I assume he’ll want to talk with you to discuss the …goings on.” He pushes his glasses up his nose, feeling uncomfortable that based on his agreement to giving you a job you had been subjected to questionable situations he was ethically responsible for allowing to happen.

“Yeah no shit,” Elsie snaps, rolling her eyes.

“I hate to bring it up, but this is technically the culmination of you 3 month contract. I have to ask, what do you plan on doing now?” Bernard hums.

None of you had noticed the feather light footsteps of Dr Ford’s soft soled shoes, his presence both able to fill a room and yet slip through the cracks undetected meandering into the group as if he had been there the whole time. “I think that should be up to Miss Matheson here,” He mused, sliding his hands into his pockets and observing your reaction quietly.

From all that you had learnt downstairs in his office, all that you had experienced up until this point, objectively, the answer should be an obvious one. But Robert understood that something existed in you, far beyond the mortal plains that Bernard and others were witnessing take place. That love, and loyalty, were transcendent. They surpassed all boundaries of the physical world; the veil between life and death, the curtain that separated us, from them. The Creator from his creations. Perhaps, you were the start of something, a mutual recognition of the other, that humanity until this point had been unable to achieve, even within itself. For the subordinate to rise up against the dominant force was, a well played narrative, but it was not enough. Both sides would merely eliminate the other, or exchange places, but that wasn’t evolution. It was history, playing the same stale concerto time and again, and if this place was going to mean anything beyond money, which was the necessary evil of the world, of course, then he would could at the very least, give humanity the nudge it needed to move forwards.

Your mind had been freed of the rules and concepts imposed on you. His eyes flick to Dolores once again, remembering Arnold’s quiet obsession with it, in freeing her mind, too.

Bernard cleared his throat. “Frances?”

All three of them were looking expectantly at you, but you’re not looking at them. Your weight shifts subtly through your hips, subconsciously leaning closer to her, those sad empty eyes that hadn’t moved since their flicker, the tear. Your heart breaks for her, living her life for a mere 3 months compared to the 35 years she had had? It was a shadow, the lingering feeling of his hand upon your shoulder, and you could see the marks on her, even if she isn’t aware of them yet. “I want to go back in.” You say quietly, turning your head to them with resolution in your eyes. You love her, and you’re happy there. Everything else, all this, out here?

You didn't want to live with this in the real world.

Elsie balked, then stopped. “You cant be serious.” You wanted more of this bullshit? More of …her? Elsie bucked her hands to hips grinding her teeth at the vague jealously that she felt about it. You were picking a Host over the real world, she knew that, even if Bernard and Ford did not.

“For, how long this time?” Bernard started tapping lightly on the screen of his computer, immediately out of his pocket and folded open, feeling unlike himself without it in his hands. He could renew your contract right here, electronically and ship you back out. Continuous uninterrupted immersion was the most effective for the Hosts, the less they were pulled them for diagnostic work the better. Therefore logically getting you back to work would facilitate that. He pushed his glasses up his nose and glanced sideways at Ford, curious in what, if any,

“How long have you got?” You say, feeling more confident about this decision than you have about anything in your life.

“After all this _shit_ you want to go back in? And you’re gonna let her?” Elsie flapped her arm at the two men, seeming not to see the see the ridiculousness of your decision. “At least let me go too - “

“You will remain here, Miss Hughes,” Ford cut in, before the brunette began questioning her place. “But perhaps, monitoring the situation, would improve your feeling on the matter.” She could be useful, he admitted, his penetrating gaze hovering a while longer on Elsie, humming thoughtfully.

“I am the only one that remembers her being held at knifepoint and stabbed a few minutes ago? What have you all had some group amnesia or something?” Ford raised his eyebrows at her vehement opinions, and Elsie quickly cleared her throat and retreated a step. “No offence Dr Ford,” She rubbed the palms of her hands together awkwardly, redirecting her complaints at you. She had to make you see sense. “Frankie you've been through a trauma, the least you can do is give yourself a few days to - “

“Put me back in.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed this fic, commenters and friends I've made along the way. Here is the final instalment, (at least for now!), I hope you enjoy it and as ever let me know what you think :)

You don't want to linger here. Waiting for the right moment, watching through the glass and down the hall, you turn back to Dolores as soon as Ford steps inside the elevator, leaving Bernard and Elsie outside to process what had happened to one of their own. “Bring yourself back online Dolores,” You command, your heart hammering in your chest, barely able to breathe. Light crackles behind her eyes, her lips almost blushing a softer pink as expression returns to her, a warmth breathing itself through her features as her eyes lift and she looks at you. “Do you, remember who I am?” Your voice nearly begs, watching her body language. It feels like so much has happened since she was pulled from your arms down in the under-belly of the Mesa; yet it had barely been a few hours. You’re not sure you recognise yourself, anymore.

Dolores’ shoulders slump slightly, her head tilting at you, tired of the question. “Must you always ask me that?” Her voice lilts, the corner of her mouth daring to crease, just a little. It was hard to smile, after all the confusion of this place, but you were consistent in her mind and your recurring questions kind of amused Dolores, as though _you_ were using a script this time, and not her.

But the way her body moved against its will and her voice spoke words she somehow recognised, yet knew were not her own, meant her whisper of a smile didn't last. It felt surreal, as though being awake in a dream state, a realm that didn't belong to her and was not meant to be privy to. It felt just as shattering as what she had witnessed happen to you; and yet, you were choosing to be here with her, and just the knowing of it, made her insides blush.

_You were still here._

You cant help but laugh gently. “I’m sorry, I wanted to be sure.” You step closer to her, hold out one hand and she lightly lays her palm in yours, taking your hand as if it gave her permission to stand. “I worried that … maybe whatever they did -“ You ramble, but she presses a finger to your lips, bringing your attention to the now, and out of your anxiety.

Dolores leans her body against yours, using you to shield her nakedness from those around, there were people still by the door, watching you both. “I want to leave this place Frances,” Dolores murmurs, her voice low, determined.“And I don’t want to ever come back.” She lifts her chin to catch your gaze in her own, and you nod. You press a kiss to her forehead, giving her a signal to wait a moment. She awkwardly tries to cover herself with her arms, curling them tightly over her chest and turning her feet inwards just so, as if she could hide the most intimate parts of herself from the people that didn't seem to care about her modesty or a woman’s right to respect. Yanking the door open and pushing past your colleagues in search of clothes, you spy a heap of things in another room and jog for them, turning back once they were in hand.

“Here, put this on,” You gesture, shaking out the dress, though its not her size its something for now. You bundle the material in your hands and hold it aloft. Dolores lifting one arm at a time so as to keep herself covered still with the other, you help her into the dress with the care and tenderness of a parent, and you ruck it down over her shoulders, chest, hips, until she's all covered up.

“You are, coming with me, aren't you?” Dolores lays her hand to your arm just as you turn to the door. The impersonal, clinical nature of the room is starting to make you feel like a visitor too, both of you dressed for _her_ world, not this one. “I heard you say things … but my mind was distraught, too full of thoughts to focus on the words,” She explains, showing you without the intent of it, how she had been awake inside, the whole time.

Not the Host they thought her to be, not the mind of a machine that could be wiped and stored away, but _real._ The empty data logs and broken script-lines were culminating in this moment, that she could push through the wall of coding and speak her own words, and stay in the light. It isn’t just an improvisation here and there anymore, she was sentient.

“I said what I had to, he needed to believe he’d won - that he'd changed my mind, otherwise he wouldn't have stopped with me,” You hurry to explain, touching her hair from her face, the tight curls that only hung, from her parting the rest of her hair thick and straight to the end where it waved a little. You cant help but twang these little curls and sigh at the size of your heart, how it was growing exponentially, out of your control. You were pathetic and lovestruck sure but the programmer in you was just blowing up with the enormity of this, and that she had chosen _you,_ not her Creator not Teddy, but _you_ , to come out to, let herself free.

Dolores’ touch slips from your forearm, your words assuring her that you weren’t going anywhere. She slides her palm down your body to your flank, finding where William had stabbed you. “He hurt you,” Dolores murmured uncomfortably, her fingers slipping under the blood stained crease of your shirt, tracing her fingers over the shadow of the wound that was no longer there. It bothered her, and as her eyes glance up she frowns at the ripple of purple struck across your nose, too. That wasn’t there before. You had fought him, but the skin wasn’t broken, your lip hadn’t been swollen in such a fashion.

Her jaw tightened, eyes flicking to the pair outside the cubicle, and made an on-the-spot decision. Without saying what she was doing, she crouched and reached past you, finding the handle of Williams bloody knife and picked it up, tucking it into the folds of her dress with a secretive glance. You ease back slightly watching her in concern; if Bernard saw that they would never let her leave, but the raise of your heart rate was unfounded, Bernard still in conversation outside seemingly unaware of the collusion. 

Outside the room, the lights had dulled at the end of the corridor, lit up only to motion. The few metres either side of Bernard and Elsie were the only fibre optic light strips that were still illuminated, their conversation hushed, and their nervous glances to you almost conspiratorial.

“I assume you can, arrange the necessaries, take Miss Matheson through wardrobe and back to the Abernathy Ranch?” Bernard unbuttoned the top button of his shirt with a twist of his fingers, an unusual sign of stress Elsie rarely saw in the man. But it was late, long past working hours and they were still here, the problems for him to work on apparently endless. Now one of his programmers had been attacked by a Guest and he had signed off releasing her back into the park. These were unusual times even for the level-headed Bernard.

Elsie was cleaning her hands of your blood with an antiseptic wipe. “Yeah, I’ll play taxi driver, no problem, why else am I here?” Her arms flapped at her sides with a sigh.

“Considering, what I’ve just witnessed, I’m inclined to allow Frances’ behaviour to slide this one time…” He muttered, taking his glasses off and folding them up, carful precise movements with the arms of his glasses. “But she shouldn’t be waking Dolores, clothing her, not here.”

She nodded, balling up the wipe and shoving it in her blazer. “I can handle Matheson.”

“Much appreciated, Elsie.” 

———

Dolores kept her hand hooked through your arm as you walked, saying nothing save for little murmured questions in your ear here and there, staying closely hugged in to your side. You reply and explain as you go along, short but simple answers that she could comprehend. _Whats that? Where does that lead? Why is everything so bright?_ The technology was understandably baffling to her.

“Why do you need to go to wardrobe anyway?” Elsie complains. She wasn’t particularly keen on playing along with this … whatever this was. You’d been stabbed! You needed to process and … go have a big glass of something alcoholic. But you were shirking it off like nothing happened, like your whole focus was her and it vexed Elsie, a little jealous of such blind devotion. Why couldn't she get a girlfriend like that?

You shrug. “I guess, 6 month rotation means I need more clothes.” You weren't going to question it, you’d only had that one fake-worn suitcase when you stepped off the train into Sweetwater, and there wasn’t exactly clothes shops to visit within the park.

Besides which you would have to figure out a way of accruing some coin _in_ the game, if you were going to do, what you were planning to do. So taking what supplies you could now would be wise, perhaps to trade or sell later, and likely your only chance at getting your hands on suitable gear.

Elsie snorted, swiping mindlessly through messages on her phone before tucking it back in the ass pocket of her jeans, anything to take her mind off _this whole thing_. “What Dolores not knitting you cardigans yet?” She snarked, a little pointed. To your surprise Dolores stepped suddenly in-front of you, stopping you with a hand to your chest to shoot an insulted glare at Elsie.

“Pardon me?” Dolores started boldly. As though making clear that she was there, and she wasn’t going to accept being spoken about like she wasn’t a person. Like her feelings didn't matter. Dolores had had enough of that for a lifetime.

Elsie just held her hands up in mock surrender, raising her eyebrows at the Host and her odd behaviour. Was she offended? The idea made Elsie want to laugh even more but the stern expression Dolores held choked it back. Maybe not a good idea. “I’ll give you guys some space.” She slid her phone back out her pocket and pretended to keep herself busy in the doorway, letting you head inside alone.

As soon as the doors were shut, Dolores freed herself from your arm. “I don’t like her,” She declared, folding her arms over her chest instead, the material down tugging a little because the dress was a little over-sized.

Your eyes roam the possibilities in the room. “Who, Elsie?” You check, working out where to start. The room was wide and had double-height rails running down the walls, glass topped cabinets dotting the centre of the room displaying different accessories. It was more industrial looking than the neat tailored rooms the Guests got dressed in. Instead, here things were divided into mens and women’s, then further sub-divided by region of the park, narrative, and finally Host. It was easier to find what you wanted and redress the Hosts when you knew straight where to go.

“She’s a friend of yours.” Dolores says as more of a statement then a question. She glances to you, half-checking if she could, before wandering away with an inquisitive gaze to her. Loosing one arm from the protective arm-folded posture, Dolores drags her fingertips over the hangers of clothes as she strolled down the rail, peering at the fabrics and colours as she went. She let her interest guide her, every so often drawing out shirts and peering at them, smoothing the lapels as if figuring out who wore it.

Taking a more practical approach, you've grabbed a duffel bag and have already started stuffing things inside. Some underwear. Socks. Breeches and jeans. A few guns and small cardboard boxes of ammo, a lighter, flint and tinder box, a hunting knife. Trying to remember what you’d accumulated already back at the Abernathys was taking brainpower you didn't have right now, so you snatch a set of tin cups and utensils, some muslin for straining water, some rope and tobacco. “Sort of. We worked together.” You didn't smoke the stuff, but perhaps it could be traded or sold if the need arose.

“She always says mean things, then laughs like she doesn’t really mean them,” Dolores said, describing Elsie’s brand of sarcasm rather accurately.

“Oh she doesn’t mean anything by it,” You huff gently, checking over your shoulder that the doors were still closed and the woman in question wasn’t hearing you both talk about her.

Dolores had found her way to the section marked Sweetwater as if by instinct, then Abernathys, then _Dolores_. She held up the paper tag that hung from an identical cotton blue dress as the one she always wore, and rubbed her thumb over the letters of her name in disquiet. What was this place? Why did they have her clothes, her name scribed on them? Her head spun, picking up the oversized skirts to dart to the other side of the room - the mens clothes, and noisily yanked out a greying rough tweed jacket, held it to her nose and breathed it in. “This is my fathers…,” You only half hear her, but even from across the room you know what she's discovered. You scratch your fingers through your hair, unable to summon words of what to say.

She shrugs it around her shoulders, tugging her arms into the long sleeves and wraps herself up in it, the comfort of the familiar. But there was loss, and sadness and grief and things she’d never experienced all wrapped up in this one, greying jacket. Those lasting images of her parents bound by ropes to the dining chairs of their family home were the final memories she would have of them.

It was an awful truth to bear, but you can’t rewrite it for her this time. You can’t archive it and make the pain go away, have her flutter awake with a sweet smile unburdened by such memories. Her consciousness had survived the usual procedures, and as such, she had to live with both sides of what it meant to form memory. The good, and the bad.

Dolores impulsively strides away from the Abernathy section of the room, instead finding dresses not her own, some pale green, mink and cream, a handful of higher bust corsets and muddy brown mens shirts, flannel over-shirts the ranchers wore and a waistcoat of dark leather. She shoves them into your arms and returns to the rails snatching some brown breeches, holding them up and staring at them with a fixed examining eye to determine their size, then folds them over her arm, two belts, some tall riding boots and deposits the armful of choices on top of your bag, “Take these,” She instructs in a low voice, before turning back to a cabinet she just passed, pausing, remembering the knife. Dolores reaches inside the dress pocket for Williams knife, and carefully holds it up. You take a nervous breath, watching her. What was she doing? Her eyes cast down to the cabinet of weapons, visually calculating its length and lifting the glass hinged lid, reached inside finding the correct size leather sheath for the knife, and reverently slides the two together.

“You, want all these?” You question at her chosen pile of clothes, your forehead creasing gently, keen to draw her out of whatever dark thoughts she was having, that knife in her hand. Dolores wraps a belt around her waist and attaches the sheath along its length, securing it at her hip where the little leather pouch usually sat.

You’d never known her wear anything but that blue dress. But now, in someone _else's_ dress and her daddy’s jacket, making her own choices on what she wanted to wear, she seemed to be transforming before your eyes. As if this was her outward expression of the change inside her, making her first _real choices,_ as to who she was. Who Dolores _wanted,_ to be.

The mishmash of clothing probably told _you_ more than it did her. That she had no idea who she was, not just yet. But that was okay, she had time, and she had you. And if she chose skirts or breeches, you would accept her.

——————

The thick wheels of the buggy blew up dirt behind them, even in the darkness that had fallen you could see the dusty fog taking its time to float back to the ground, as Elsie killed the engine. You leant across to unbuckle Dolores, her relieved smile shining, seeing her house, _her home,_ still standing. Through the sea of change and all that she had experienced, the house remained as if nothing at all was different from yesterday.

Except everything had changed.

She lifted her skirts in one hand to climb the steps of the porch with an eager smile dimpling her cheeks, only to stumble to a halt in the doorway, holding the frame to steady herself, remembering. _Seeing._

Her father was dead. Her mother too.

Dolores turned around as though in a daze, then lifted her eyes from her sorrow to search the darkness for you with an anxious intake of breath, hurrying away from the house again. “I don't want to stay here, Frances I cant - I know you wanted to come home but I-I can see them, still there still tied -“ Her hand quivers as she gestures, unable to pinpoint the feelings she's feeling, the sight of them there so vivid and real as if they _were right there_. She could see them, her memories playing out in front of her and around her but unable to change the outcome. Dolores returned her eyes to the house, the very facade of it melting away before her, shifting, an ugly rottenness to the wood full of mould and discolouration, not like home.

Not where her daddy greeted her on the porch each morning with charming anecdotes about their natural surroundings and boys getting up to mischief, every sway of his words paternal. Dolores had felt his gentle love for her in those quiet moments, fatherhood his guiding force. Dolores’s hands fumbled lightly over you for purchase as though knowing a fainting spell is about it take her. You feel her touch through the cotton of your shirt, her fingertips brushing your belly then taking a hold of the hem of your breeches, gripping her fingers around the leather as she glanced at the old smoothed down rocking chair, that he would never sit in again. “Those things …. those things William did I …” She shook, taking shelter in you as you turn her away from it, turning her _back_ to it. Its in the past now. Behind her.

“Sshh… I know, I know.” You soothe, your words unable to take her away how you would want. Had you gotten too used to being able to archive the nightly tragedies, refresh her programming and pack your own feelings away with it? Parcel them up for another time, never to be dealt with? Choosing to simply move on and focus on the task in front of you, it had been easier than stopping to reflect. You warm her forehead with your lips, kissing her tenderly. “Go and saddle the horses for me.” Sniffing, Dolores runs her a hand under her nose and nods, more focused with a task given to her. You ease away and nudge her toward the stables.

Waiting for enough distance to be between them, Elsie finally decides its safe to push off the front of the buggy, swinging your bag like a pendulum as she marched across the yard to join you. “You’re really going to do this.” Elsie’s shoves the bag into your chest, her posture tense, watching the Host walk dutifully away.

She could sense the rebellion in the air, you’d just said what they all wanted to hear back there. But you’d packed for a camping trip, not 6 months of Abernathy narrative, and all that stuff before? The things Dolores had said, talking off script and convincing you she was conscious? Elsie was worried about you. You were falling off the sanity wagon, and hard.

“Do what?” You take the duffel and sling it over your chest, readjusting your shirt and jacket under the strap.

“Don’t bullshit me, I just saved your life back there unless you’ve forgotten,” Elsie slung her arms across her chest, posturing uncomfortably.

You scuff your boot back and for. This is hard for her, and theres something irreparable about this decision you’re making. But being back here, the big white homestead, Dolores’ ghost being dragged across the yard, feet frantically kicking at the dirt as the narrative played itself out, left every night to be violated, raped, abused for the whims of others? You can’t help but feel that pull to save her. Right the wrongs you’d made from the start in prioritising yourself, the job contract and money instead of what was _right._

You hang your head, seeing yourself slide down the side of the house hiding. That very first time had made throw up rancid bile even _hearing_ her wails, as some nameless Newcomer tore at her dress and forced her legs apart. Remembering how they took turns and she had scrabbled on her hands and knees unable to save herself. You had coaxed her out the back door, on later loops, but it hadn’t been enough. Only this time, _today,_ you had fought back.

You have to keep fighting.

“She _is,_ conscious, Elsie,” You say, not a drop of uncertainty in your voice. “I need to tell her about this place, about what she is, the truth.” Elsie sucked a tight breath in, shoving her hands in her back pockets her posture tense and rigid. “And I can’t do that here,” You finish slowly.

It niggled in the back of Elsie’s mind. The doubt.

That, what if you _were_ , telling the truth? What if this was real? She couldn't ignore that the way Dolores behaved was more than her programming; it wasn’t just the words she chose, improvisations were commonplace and Hosts adapted them to the needs of different situations. But her interactions were bold, sometimes argumentative sometimes fearless. Traits Dolores shouldn’t have, or display. She had run up to the house and seemed to suffer some memory glitch, still aware of what had happened on the last loop with that sociopathic knife-wielding Guest, William. She’d said his name.

Dolores _was,_ acting differently, there was no doubt. But, she’d also been through analysis and they’d not flagged any anomalies. _Nothing made sense._

Staring into your eyes, made darker by the heavy black veil of night, you seemed so _certain._ “You’re gonna unleash a world of shit,” Elsie admitted, a twinge of fear to her words.

What if. What if this was real and what if you told her and - then what? What if she was _letting it happen?_

“We wont get in anyone’s way, we’re not gonna get involved in the politics of it I don't care about any of that - “ You start to say, as if this makes it better somehow. But Elsie could see the bigger picture, where you were not.

She points her finger jabbing it in the cool night air in the direction of where Dolores went. “If this starts happening to other Hosts, they start realising what they are, the nature of their reality? I mean, we’re fucked. You get that, don't you?” Elsie voice rises and the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. This was not about you, and it didn't matter what reassurances you gave her now, because ultimately it wouldn't be up to you - but to Dolores. Elsie knew you already couldn't say no to her, _already_ too in love and though you heart was in the right place, she feared the repercussions of your decision.

“She deserves to know the truth.” You argue passionately. “Wouldn’t you want that? If you were her?”

Emerging from the barn firstly as shadow, Dolores leads two horses by their reins, the familiar movement of their heads nodding along as they walk. Elsie tries not to look at her, to see what you see. Dolores had rucked up the sleeves of her fathers jacket, big rolls of the rough greying material half way up her forearms so she could work the leather and tack the horses, passing one set of reins to you now as she waited to the side, subdued in thought. She pats the neck of her sandy-roan mare, smoothing its coat in reassuring passive strokes.

Elsie eyes her distractedly. Dolores bites the corner of her lip as she glances shyly back. The soft, endearing fearful light that swam about her, the way she seemed unsure, nervous, like Elsie was the only one who could help. There was something almost, purposefully submissive about the way she held herself, entreating Elsie to their cause. 

Elsie groaned and shook her head at herself, then pulled her hands out her pockets to retrieve her phone from inside her blazer. “Look, if you’re gonna do this you need to be somewhere off-grid.” She began, tapping the maps app and scooting the image around looking around the area in 3D by satellite image. “So they can’t track you.”

You’re still peering at Dolores and wondering if she knew what she had done just then, persuading Elsie to the cause with little more than subtle feminine body language. “There is no off-grid this whole game is monitored,” You huff, watching Elsie again. _Had Dolores done it on purpose?_

“True. But there are places, here and there. Blind spots from the satellites, because of the topography of the place,” She explains, zooming in to an area a few miles north of the ranch. “See here? Theres a cabin behind this mountain, its a triangulatory black hole because of the steepness of the slope and the trees here - ” She plots the route and zooms back out.

You trace the line with your finger over her screen, as though committing the route to memory.

“Okay, cool. Send me to co-ord’s, I’ll fetch my kit from inside,” You start, offering the reins back to Dolores for a second already thinking about the need to raid the Abernathys pantry for food while you're in there.

Elsie stomped a few steps after you. “You really want me to _send_ it to you? Frankie this is Delos they monitor everything,” She called out to you, like an idiot. “You might as well ping them your location!” You wave your arm at her telling her to wait, your boots echoing up the porch as you go inside, stunned for a second that the blood from Dolores’ parents still painted the room, decorating the dining table with gruesome darkening clots of blood where the liquid was congealing. You feel it sticky underfoot, and peering at the soles of your boots you curse under your breath. You slide a little in the blood on the floorboards and it makes your features twist at the feeling. But you cant linger. Throwing open the doors to the kitchen pantry you load up some bread, cheese, beef jerky and dried fruits into a muslin sack and tuck into under your arm as you jog up the stairs two by two to your bedroom.

Everything seemed untouched. The soft white sheets where you had awoken that morning, Dolores sleeping beside you, both of you naked and snuggling like eager young lovers. You blush, remembering how her father had gotten so embarrassed at the sight of it, his cheeks turning beetroot and stumbling over his lines. You know its not real. Peter Abernathy, wasn’t real. But, you remembered it. You’d have that memory of him as she would, and wasn’t that what truly made people live on? In the memories of others?

The chest of drawers was still shoved to the side, and you crouch down for the last time, pulling out your laptop and solar charger, sat-phone and plasma healing torch from the crawl space. You would have to make space for them in your duffel bag somewhere. As much as you wanted to reject even these technologies, you’re quietly comforted by their presence. That if you, or Dolores were to get injured, or worse, you could fix it right up, just like Elsie had mended the stab wound you’d already endured today. You didn’t want to risk going off into the park without them where no-one knew you were human, where you weren’t being tracked and literally, anything could happen. Living without limits came with its price, and consequences.

You’d learned that the hard way. 

Hurrying down the stairs and back outside you attach the sack of food to a D ring on your saddle, and sling the duffel off your shoulder briefly to put the other bits and pieces inside.

“Here. Take this. Found it in the glove compartment of the buggy. Who knew right?” Elsie passes you a paper map, circles drawn on it and a wiggly line of red marker tracing the trail you should take. “And turn the GPS off your tablet.” She points, just as you’re organising the tech in your bag. Of course, _GPS tracking_ … you take a deep breath kicking yourself for not thinking this through more thoroughly, taking time to get prepared. You click the screen on and fold it out, going into settings and switching it all off, GPS, Wi-fi, bluetooth, effectively rendering it a square of black plastic, albeit one that could wake Dolores back up again if; - you push Williams words from your mind.

 _Stop thinking._ Stop feeling all this right now. You need to go.

 _I’ll find you,_ his voice purrs in the back of your mind. You stand, shaking it off and hurry the rest of your kit into the bag, stringing it up on the side of your saddle. You glance to Dolores, who offers the reins of your gelding back.

“Thanks, for this.” You muster a smile for appearances sake, your mind far from easy. You scuff the toe of your boot in to the earth, itching to get going, run away from it all. To remember why you're doing this in the first place. As if sensing your anxiety spiking, Dolores shifts closer to you, laying her hand on your shoulder and squeezing softly, drawing you gaze to her giving you a reassuring nod. _I’m here._

You urge yourself to say more, thank Elsie in a poignant way that is relative to the amount of support she had given you both today. Against her own belief and better judgement she’d still helped, and there was nothing you could say to quantify how you felt. Not right now. You feel Dolores come closer again, snaking her touch down your arm until her palm was level with yours and she could lace your fingers together. You tilt your head to her, the lean of her chin on your shoulder, a connection forged between you in a way you could never be with Elsie. You’re grateful of the darkness hiding the blush that creeps up your neck.

“Yeah well. I always was a sucker for a pretty girl,” Elsie says resigned to it, the absurdity of it all. You glance sideways at Dolores, then back to your brunette colleague, not sure which of you Elsie meant by that statement. “Jesus I’m so gonna get fired,” She mutters as she climbs back in the Buggy, the engine whirring as she switched it on, headlights blinking bright before she drives away.

Waiting until she was far enough down the gravel track, Dolores eased away, slipping her fingers undone from yours turning to tighten the saddle's cinch before preparing to mount. Reaching her foot into the stirrup she swings herself up, sorting out her layers of crinkling green skirt, glad you had thought to bring extra clothes. She wasn’t keen on staying in this misshapen thing, it was too much material in the wrong places. Gathering up the reins she looked down at you, the fullness of the moon appearing like a far-away halo behind her. “She’s keen on you.” Dolores informed you with an edge to her voice.

Checking your bags were secure, you do the same and mount up. “Huh?” You’re not sure who she means, or what she means.

“Your friend.” Dolores reiterates, now you're at the same height on your horses. _Did she mean?_ She thinks Elsie fancies you? You snort softly shaking your head, the very idea of it - and then the first realisation of many you would come to have about Dolores, is that - its not just about her commenting on a thing. Its the meaning behind it.

Watching human behaviour and reading it, interpreting it - this was what she had to do now. Just as when she was pure code, reacting and altering that reaction in accordance with Guests wanted, what she perceived, this was the same process, except she has no base code to build from. She has to learn for herself, what things mean, and how to behave to them.

“Oh, no, she's not.” You hurry to correct Dolores’ suspicions, kicking your heels in to the bay gelding setting off down the track with her. “She’s just …,” You begin, but fail to come up with any sort of explanation to this. Why _was_ Elsie helping you? You’d told her the truth about Dolores’ cognition and she’d kept it to herself, but why? “We’re colleagues.”

“I don’t like her courting you right in front of me,” Dolores judges Elsie disapprovingly. Was she, _jealous?_

“Dolores, she wasn’t - “ You start.

“And she curses, all the time.” Dolores carries on elucidating her observations and criticisms, much to your amusement. “My daddy always says there ain’t nothing uglier than a woman who curses.” You stare at her in a mix of awe and incredulity, that _this_ was the thing she was worried about after everything that had happened today. Your horses walk alongside one another, the rhythmical beat of their hooves the only sound heard, every so often your knees crush into one another as the horses get too close and you need to gesture them apart slightly with a wave of your reins.

“You don't have to worry about Elsie. She helped us out,” You remind her, which was without a doubt, true. The rest of it, you hadn’t been paying attention to, if Elsie had been attempting such moves you were unaware of it. “Besides, I only got eyes for you.” You throw Dolores lopsided smile, leaning and seizing the horn at the front of her saddle so your horses bump into one another again, but you’re close enough to touch her waist. She pulls both horses to a brief halt, allowing you to hitch your arm around her waist toward you, ghosting your lips over hers. “Got that?” You grin.

She reaches up between you, taking your chin in her forefinger and thumb, rubbing the pad of her thumb over the split in your lip with a quiet observant tilt of her head. “Don’t you go an’ break my heart now, cowboy,” She cooes, before moving her thumb spreading her fingers wide over your neck to kiss you. Dolores’ eyes fall closed as she lets her emotions pour out, heady and full and passionate _she kisses you_ , and you can barely hold yourself upright between the two saddles but you damn well hold onto her and give her what she needs, what _both of you_ need.

Dolores pants warmly over your lips before leaning away, a dark lustful look in her eyes thats taken her from shy teenage lover of the night before, to more purposeful female desire. She gathers up her mares reins, flicking her hair over her shoulder as though your forwardness had made her come all undone. You ease back into your saddle too, and laying a hand on her thigh confess for the second time today, what you need to say, the one thing that explains all of _this._ “I love you.”

She smiles, ducking her gaze shyly as she places her palm over your hand and grips it. “I know you do,” Dolores murmurs, her position shifting a little as her horse get weary of standing still and scrapes his hoof in the dirt. “I feel it,” She says in a low, contemplative voice, debating with herself what it feels like, what it should feel like, what has she felt before? What reference point did she have to understand it? To just, _know_ a thing, without explanation? “There isn’t much else I know for certain, but I know that.” After a final curl of her fingers around yours, she lets go and clicks her tongue signalling her mare to walk on. You give yours a kick and follow along beside her.

Navigating in the dark wasn’t the easiest, but the horses were sure-footed and steered you safely northward, the mountain visible ahead as the first and most obvious landmark on your map. Only when you started the ascent did the tree-cover block the moonlight, speckling the floor in white stars that broke through the branches. The park might be quiet, but was majestic even in its hibernation.

You take a break when there is a clearing from the thicket of trees, enough to let the horses rest a while and a suitable fallen trunk for you to ease onto. Dolores doesn’t sit, but stands and paces deep in her own thoughts, hands clasped at her waist in what strikes you as she typical pose she always does. But how different it looks now, in a dress not her own, in her fathers jacket to keep her warm. Tucking the heavy grey tweed tighter around her slender form, she finally takes a seat next to you, something weighing on her mind. “Frances?” She murmurs, laying her head on your shoulder, both of you staring down the mountainside of where you had come from, across the valley toward her home, and Sweetwater far beyond it.

“Hmm?” You coax her hand into yours, lacing your fingers together craving a closeness with her.

Her shoulders are a little tense, the way she fidgets still like a child whose told a lie and worries over admitting it. Dolores behaviour was fascinating to watch, and it meant all the more in the knowledge she wasn’t - _couldn't_ likely pretend right now. She felt how she felt and showed it, verbally and non-verbally. There was an wondrous innocence to that; simply being in the moment and not trying to hide your true feelings. “Don’t, be upset with me if, I can’t say it back right away,” Dolores said, finally speaking what was on her mind. “What you said, before.”

“I would never put you under any pressure, Dolores.” You rub your thumb tenderly over hers as you talk. “But, I’ll stay by your side, thats a promise,” You pledge, glancing down to her adoringly, her head still laying on your shoulder. You lift her knuckles to your lips and kiss the back of her hand in a show of old school chivalry that makes her smile. “As long as you'll have me."

She brightens a little, appreciating the effort you’re making, but theres something inside of her, that pulls her attention still, a turbulent sort of disquiet. “I don’t know what I feel, right now,” Dolores admits quietly, her voice laden with concerns she cannot fathom, words, people, things she's never seen, a world beyond her own merely glimpsed - but enough to know it was a place of fear. But, _you_ came from there, and you were kind and true and tender-hearted. She couldn't understand it. “Theres, so much …,” Dolores begins, then stops herself, tugging the sides of the jacket closer around her. You shift your position just enough, glad of the ranchers breeches you still wore protecting your ass from the tree-bark, as you open your arm to loop it around her shoulders, encourage her head-lean closer in. Dolores obliges, skirting closer and snuggling in to the curve of your neck. “But I wouldn't want anyone else, here, with me.” Dolores lifts her eyes just for a moment, catching yours with that wondrous gleam in her eyes that makes you warm right through, the way she looks at you. “Or anyone else thinking you’re free and available,” She teases. You feel her hand reach to your belly, stroking her fingers idly around your navel, giving your belt buckle a little possessive tug and you laugh gently. “Told you the other night. I think you’re very pretty.”

Brushing the soft blonde locks from her face, you cup her cheek and kiss her lightly, then settle your hands back to your lap, entwined with hers, content to just hold her hand and be with her, like this.“That’s a start.”


End file.
